Three-year quest to establish weapon testing site in Essex County hits another roadblock
By Gwendolyn Craig
The Adirondack Park Agency on Thursday shot holes in a plan to set up a munitions firing range in an economically challenged Essex County town.
In its latest rejection Thursday, the APA board turned down an engineering and consulting firm’s appeal and went along with agency staff’s position that the application is incomplete. The applicant has been trying for nearly three years to secure a permit to test big guns in rural Lewis.
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Michael Hopmeier, president and principal investigator for Unconventional Concepts, Inc. and owner of a former missile silo in the town, appealed the APA’s fifth notice of incomplete application issued in January. He was not present at the agency’s board meeting in Ray Brook, but was represented by Lake Placid lawyer Matthew Norfolk.
The APA board members present voted unanimously to deny the appeal.
Norfolk said he would be discussing next steps with his client.
Since November 2021, Hopmeier has sought approval to test artillery on a 197-acre lot owned by Pulsifer Logging on Hale Hill Lane in Lewis. The property is adjacent to the Taylor Pond Wild Forest.
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James Pulsifer, the closest private resident to the proposed firing range and owner of the logging company, favors the project. However, several nearby neighbors wrote to the APA citing concerns, including about noise.
The project has morphed over the years. It was originally pitched as testing the internal ballistics of cannons made at Benét Laboratories in Watervliet for the U.S. Army. A spokesman for the Army told the Explorer in April that it had issued a stop-work order in August 2022.
Hopmeier told the Explorer the Army wasn’t his company’s only customer interested in the testing. The project now proposes to test howitzers.
The appeal
Norfolk’s appeal of the agency’s fifth notice of incomplete application was remarkable in that it was the first such appeal in almost eight years. In November 2016, LS Marina, on Lower Saranac Lake, appealed in its permit struggle.
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At Thursday’s meeting, Lewis Town Supervisor Jim Monty attempted to back the firing range plan as an economic stimulus for the town. Monty was cut off by APA Counsel Damion K.L. Stodola because public comments cannot be about matters before the board since the information is not part of the record.
When he got his chance to talk during the public comment period later, Monty spoke in favor of Hopmeier’s project, as did Essex County Board of Supervisors Chairman Shaun Gillilland. Gillilland, who is a U.S. Navy veteran, emphasized the importance of Hopmeier’s artillery studies. Monty called the economic importance of Hopmeier’s work to Lewis “immeasurable.”
“We don’t sit in the beauty of the High Peaks or the Champlain Valley,” Monty said. “We’re trying to do our best to survive, and there’s not a lot of development, especially in the park.”
John Sheehan, communications director for the Adirondack Council, told the Explorer: “We are very pleased that the APA board has rejected this appeal. Private testing of military weapons should not be granted permission inside the Adirondack Park.”
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The agency’s fifth notice was “duplicative, unnecessary or moot as all information requested for the project application to be complete has been submitted,” Norfolk and Hopmeier said in appeal records. They criticized the agency’s request for more information on a berm Hopmeier proposed for sound mitigation, and the agency’s continued questions around noise.
“For agency staff to ask what materials will be used to construct a berm would cause most reasonable persons’ eyes to roll,” Norfolk wrote in the appeal.
Norfolk recommended that APA hire an outside expert to answer their sound study questions.
APA Associate Counsel Sarah Reynolds defended the agency’s review. She said it had not needed outside expertise in almost a decade — since its last public hearing before an administrative law judge involving a large-scale subdivision called the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake.
Reynolds outlined a number of inconsistencies found among the various application submissions, including how Hopmeier hadn’t specified he would be testing howitzers until the second notice of incomplete application.
The matter before the agency’s regulatory committee took less than 30 minutes and members had few questions before denying the appeal, which was later also denied by the full APA board with little discussion.
APA Board Members Zoë Smith, who attended the beginning of the meeting remotely, and Benita Law Diao, who had a scheduling conflict, were absent.
The APA is charged with long-range planning and overseeing public and private development in the constitutionally protected state park.
Top photo: Matthew Norfolk, a Lake Placid lawyer representing Unconventional Concepts, Inc. over its fifth notice of incomplete application, speaks before the Adirondack Park Agency during an appeal on Thursday in Ray Brook. Behind him is APA Associate Counsel Sarah Reynolds. Photo by Gwendolyn Craig
““For agency staff to ask what materials will be used to construct a berm would cause most reasonable persons’ eyes to roll,” Norfolk wrote in the appeal. ”
No Mr. Norfolk, this in a normal request in planning documents. Soils, hydrology, and potential impacts are real…
Thank you APA for protecting the wilderness ecosystem in the Adirondacks and Lewis. The idea of this type of operation as a means of so called development is absurd. No munitions testing needed in our county, just because you own a silo…. keep it in FL or VA…. not on the land of the Adirondacks.
Thank you Adirondack Park Agency and Board for protecting the Adirondack Park and having the foresight to see that this project is not in line with the future of the Park and denying the fifth (5)application for being incomplete and inconsistent.
No doubt Mr. Hopmeier will appeal and continue to try to make his plans come to fruition. I listened to the meeting and the inconsistencies and lack of requested information from one application packet to the next clearly had the sound of someone winging it and hoping to baffle people with BS. If it was not for the APA oversite this unchecked manifest destiny, conquer and exploit mindset would over whelm the Park within a generation or two.
It is disappointing that some local elected officials supposedly representing ALL local constituents of Lewis and Essex County have not even considered the possible negative ramifications of this project. Mr. Monty feels “We don’t sit in the beauty of the High Peaks or the Champlain Valley” ; well many of us residents wholeheartedly disagree and see great beauty in the surrounding woodlands of the Jay Range, Giant Mountain and the expanding Taylor Pond Wilderness area near Pokomoonshine. Shame on him for denigrating the north eastern Adirondack Park. What’s next Mr. Monty a toxic waste disposal landfill? Many folks in Lewis see what appears to be a blind servitude to perceived power and the almighty dollar. Shame on you Mr. Monty and Mr. Gilliland. Furthermore; what economic boon to Lewis? You mean bring down property values because no one wants a non-resident private citizen’s cannon/howitzer testing facility disrupting the local residences or the out of the area person’s vacation homes.
Where are all theses jobs you allude to? Yeah, that’s what I thought, some part-time caretaker/security position held by someone who doesn’t live in Essex County and a part-time handy person/cleaning job. This project only makes a few persons (Hopmeier and Pulsifer) a generous amount of money. Even if this project was allowed and thank God the applications were denied for a fifth (5) time, again, where is the economic boon to Lewis? That’s right, you buy a few sandwiches at Denton’s. Maybe Gilliland, Monty, Pulsifer and Hopmeier should be looking up and down Route 9 for economic development ideas that are more in line with celebrating the Adirondack Park’s recreational opportunities and serenity. Business’s like what Dr. Rob Demuro and entrepreneur Aaron Wolfe are bringing to the area include restaurants, a brewery and bike shop that will compliment the area and cater to those visiting this wonderful Park and it’s residents. Yes, they will be proving jobs. I guess they don’t think the north east Adirondacks are the armpit of the Park!
Just a reminder Mr. Hopmeier, the Adirondack Park is constitutionally protected and way more people than not; whether from the area or just love to visit the Park a few weeks a year want the Park to be vital, protected and loved “forever wild” for generations to come.
Man, I was going to say all of that but you got there first and said it better. Particularly the suggestion that perhaps Mr, Monty has not found his calling as a town leader. Thank you and thank you APA for valuing woodlands over short term economic gain.
Benet Laboratory at the Watervliet Arsenal (and every other manufacturer) runs munitions and barrel simulations on computers now. It’s quicker, quieter, and far more accurate.
“We don’t sit in the beauty of the High Peaks or the Champlain Valley,” Monty said. “We’re trying to do our best to survive, and there’s not a lot of development, especially in the park.”
A sleepy, out of the way place because it is NOT spectacular. That is the charm in much of the Park that is not associated with high tourism. Some live here to appreciate the peace and quiet. If the testing can be done adequately by computers, doesn’t that make the most sense?
Why is it relevant that this guy owns a “former missile silo”?
From Sheehan: ” Private testing of military weapons should not be granted permission inside the Adirondack Park”
Why not? Private companies do these tests for us. A 200 acre logging plot seems like the right place to do something like this. Looks like it is very infrequent. Also, public testing of military waepons, like figher jets, are tested in the Adirondacks frequently.
I am curious why would you select this photo for the article? The guys is adjusting his collar and she is grimacing in the BG? That was the best shot?
I thought that was the perfect shot to represent a lawyer desperately trying to pass off yet another incomplete application for a client who been trying for nearly three years to secure a permit to test big guns in rural Lewis. Looks like Matt’s collar is feeling a trifle tight, and Miss Reynold’s expression is priceless!