APA considers wild forest road mileage limits, public comment open
By Gwendolyn Craig
The Adirondack Park Agency has a major task 50 years in the making—interpreting a cap on the miles of road in wild forest lands and whether to include trails only accessible to people with disabilities in that number. The board’s decision on what constitutes a road and what is considered a “material increase” could impact what roads remain in existing and future state land acquisitions.
Jerry Delaney, president of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, warned APA members of how complicated and important the matter, particularly for communities. He stressed transparency and thoughtfulness before the agency made decisions.
“I don’t think any of you really realize what the sentiment is outside this agency on access to state lands. It’s not simple, and truthfully, this is going to be one of those cases where nobody is happy, but I hope you’re going to get to a place where it’s grudgingly accepted by all.”
— Jerry Delaney, president of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board
The agency is sending the information on wild forest roads out for a 60-day public comment period and is also looking at hosting a public informational session. The agency does not have a specific timeline for making its decision.
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Megan Phillips, the APA’s deputy director of planning and Josh Clague, the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s coordinator for the Adirondacks, presented the crux before the APA on Thursday and Friday.
Wild forest is a land classification in the Adirondacks that discourages public use of motor vehicles. According to the APA’s rules and regulations in the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, “there will not be any material increase in the mileage of roads and snowmobile trails open to motorized use by the public in wild forest areas that conformed to the master plan at the time of its original adoption in 1972.” APA and DEC staff were not sure whether the “no material increase” for roads included future land acquisitions.
Phillips said the board has to decide three things:
- What was the existing mileage of roads in wild forest in 1972 and what is the existing mileage today?
- What constitutes a material increase in road mileage?
- Do paths that are open only to people with disabilities meet the definition of a road in the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan and therefore require inclusion in the total wild forest road mileage?
The paths for people with disabilities are known as CP3 mileage, short for Commissioner’s Policy No. 3. That policy came about after a July 2001 court decision in the matter of Galusha vs. the DEC. Theodore Galusha, of Warrensburg, sued the DEC under the Americans with Disabilities Act arguing that the state was violating his and others’ civil rights for not allowing motorized access to parts of the Forest Preserve. A consent decree required the state to open 26.4 miles of CP3 trails and currently the state has 21.56 miles, Clague said. There are about 16.5 miles of CP3 trails authorized by the DEC and APA, but have not yet been opened.
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Piecing together old records, Clague and Phillips said the estimated miles of roads in 1972 is 211.6, and 206.6 miles presently. If CP3 miles were included, the number would be 244.7 miles of road in wild forest.
View the APA’s presentation in the slides above. View the full packet of materials at https://apa.ny.gov/Mailing/2022/05/stateLand.htm.
The agency will collect comments through July 11. Send comments to Megan Phillips, Deputy Director for Planning, Adirondack Park Agency, P.O. Box 99, Ray Brook, NY 12977, (518) 891-4050 or to [email protected].
If the APA determines that CP3 mileage meets the definition of a road, then the agency could have to shut down existing roads. Delaney said it is the review board’s opinion that CP3 roads are not the same as traditional roads because the access is limited.
Another consideration for the board is past precedent around snowmobile trails.
While the APA has avoided determining the number of miles of road there are on wild forest, it did adopt a resolution making the interpretation for snowmobile trails. In 1972 there were 740 miles of snowmobile trails and anything 14.7% greater would be considered a “material increase,” the APA decided in 2008.
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The board will have to determine if it wants to apply the same standard for roads. APA could choose a different percentage cap for roads, but that would make it inconsistent with snowmobile trails. Phillips presented the table below to show the different “no material increase” possibilities the board could consider.
DEC Region 5 Director Joseph Zalewski said thousands of acres have been added to the Forest Preserve since the Galusha case and wondered if the APA could use a different metric like allocating a certain number of miles per 1,000 acres as roads.
Brad Austin, APA member representing Empire State Development, suggested the information go to a public forum in addition to the public comment period. APA member Zoe Smith and APA Chairman John Ernst agreed. APA Executive Director Barbara Rice said she and staff will work on a webinar or in-person meeting.
The board voted unanimously to send the information to a 60-day public comment.
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Sounds like another lawsuit in the making.
So how many miles of snowmobile trails that are on “Wild Forest Roads ” will get closed this time ?
Gould Paper who owned the property, deeded those roadways to the counties when the land was sold to NYS. They are trying once again to illegally steal roads and trails from certain user groups and turn them over to other user groups as they did with the Jack Rabitt trail.
NY is already one of THE MOST RESTRICTED places already when it comes to dirt road travel and motor vehicle trail availability. Vermont has legal Class 4 roads that are public access even, but to consider closing even more of the few available roads to get into the back country is beyond ridiculous.
If my math is correct? 211.6 miles of road per 1.15M acres of wild forest in 1972. Today there is 1.3M acres of wild forest. Using the same ratio would result in 239.2 miles of road. Add the 15% and you would have 275.08 miles of road allowable. Potentially 68.5 more miles of road than today’s 206.6 miles. Why not leave it as it is today,CP3 roads and all and call it done?
While I think that chalking all of this up to a conspiratorial environmental lobby is misguided, it also seems that the APA, for whatever reason, is being set up to fail here. It seems unlikely that APA’s decision will immediately change the road mileage metric from an absolute Parkwide total to a relative per acre total — meaning, any publicly accessible road mileage within newly-acquired Wild Forest will tip the scales past the 15% “material increase” milestone. Yet, if they keep inflating the criteria for material increase beyond that 15%, they really aren’t really doing their job as per the APSLMP.
The DEC liaison at the meeting continued to insist that the Department does not “construct new roads” (though the entire philosophy behind the APSLMP is that we can’t just take their word for it). But as per the snowmobile mileage “material increase” decision, there is a limit to their ability to create new snowmobile trails also.
Seeing as many of these roads are essentially de facto snowmobile trails that are not really being used as automobile access roads anyway (many being gated for a significant portion of the year), wouldn’t it make sense to create some UMP process for converting some of these into snowmobile trails in a way that doesn’t contribute to snowmobile mileage “material increase”?
That would be the most environmentally sound and realistic option. Convert access roads that would almost definitely not be missed into “grandfathered” snowmobile trails. Otherwise, we’re setting the stage for future decisions that continue to incrementally wear away at that “no material increase in road mileage”, only to keep access roads open to the public that few really want. Or, if we go the opposite direction and start closing down roads, DEC is apt to start building campgrounds, lean-tos and hiking trails as some type of recompense. And then it would be time to start talking about a “no material increase” for those (maybe it already is).
The history of the NYSDEC and APA backroom dealings with the environmental lobby are well known. Some of Albany’s not so dirty little secrets. The window dressing of comment periods and public hearings over roads and trails just after the tree lawsuit seem just a bit more than a coincidence. No doubt a deal has been made and the rest of us peasants will told later of the decision.
The “no material increase” language that already exists in regard to snowmobile trails is flawed. The same language, if applied to roads, will also be flawed. The fact is that the amount of state land has “materially increased” since 1972, and it continues to increase with every land purchase. Setting a numerical mileage cap based on 1972 numbers effectively causes closures of existing facilities that were formerly open for use. There is nothing wrong with conservation, and I agree that not all areas should be open to motorized recreation or transportation, but that is different than restricting a large class of the public from accessing and using huge amounts of public property. It is supposed to be “reserved and maintained for the free use of all the people” not just a select few.
New York Laws
Consolidated Laws
Environmental Conservation
Article 9 – Lands and Forests
Title 3 – Use Of Lands and Forests
§ 9-0301. Use and diminution of Adirondack and Catskill parks.
1. All lands in the Catskill park and in the Adirondack park, except
those lying within the town of Dannemora, now owned or which may
hereafter be acquired by the state, shall be forever reserved and
maintained for the free use of all the people, except that nothing
herein shall prohibit the charging of a fee for services rendered or
facilities provided.
ECL 9-0301(1)’s “free use of all the people” language means that the people of the State should all be treated equally with respect to the use of Forest Preserve lands, and although the people are “free” to use those lands, it does not mean that they are “free” to use those lands without constitutional, statutory, regulatory and Master Plan restrictions.
All use of the land must be consistent with the Constitution and an argument can be made that snowmobile trails and roads (and the motor vehicles which travel on them) are inconsistent with the Constitution’s directive that Forest Preserve lands “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.” Apparently recognizing this issue, yet understanding the inflammatory politics of closing all roads and snowmobile trails that were then in existence, those who drafted the Master Plan in the 1970’s included a compromise which grandfathered in the mileage of snowmobile trails and roads that then existed and allowed some increase in that mileage, but allowed an increase only so long as it did not constitute a “material increase” in mileage. Unfortunately, the Master Plan fails to define the term “material increase,” thus giving rise to the current controversy.
A reasonable approach to the issue of no material increase/Galusha/CP-3 roads would seem to be to allow a 15% increase in the mileage of roads, not include the mileage of Galusha roads mandated by federal court order in the no material increase calculation, but include in the 15% calculation the mileage of any CP-3 roads that go beyond the mileage of roads mandate by Galusha. This would be a compromise that honors the long history of Master Plan compromises. This compromise would be based in part on a recognition that Galusha roads are not often used and can be closed by DEC on either a temporary of permanent basis to protect the resource, and that thus far the use of such roads has not resulted in any significant damage of the resource. The compromise would also recognize a moral responsibility to allow people with disabilities to access hunting, fishing, camping and other recreational programs in areas which they could not otherwise access.
The Galusha case was based on the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Those who drafted the Master Plan could not have been aware of the ADA, and its possible federal preemptive impact on Master Plan road provisions, because the ADA wasn’t enacted by Congress until more than 20 years after the Master Plan was developed. We can only speculate how the “no material increase” provision might have been drafted if the ADA were in existence at the time the Master Plan was being drafted.
I have been going to the Moose River Plains beginning in the early 80’s, our children have enjoyed this experience as well our grandchildren now. One of the few areas in the State that you can actually access a wilderness experience. I totally reject any effort to close any more roads. The DEC and APA already closed the roads to Squaw lake and Indian lake, an area we use to camp and fish. I find it interesting that our National Parks have hundreds of thousands of visitors by auto and snowmobile annually and those who manage those area don’t see a substantial harm to the environment. While Cuomo purchased thousands of acres of new land which I supported the public has little or no access which is ridiculous. Most frustrating, many of the people making these decisions have never been to the Moose River Plains. Removing road access certainly impacts the handicapped citizens of our state as well to enjoy this unique experience.
I have been going into the Moose River Plains Wild Forest AKA Recreation Area since 1966 BEFORE the APA was even a thought,I spent my entire summers there with my family hiking the logging roads countless log bridges exploring,hunting,fishing enjoying the wilderness, fishing & camping along the Indian River & primitive camping,then in the late 70’s-80’ that entire section was reclassified & closed, from 1972 -2022 little by little roads, trails, campsites,sites on or near water reasonable access to lakes & ponds etc ..are no longer accessible ! Enough is enough the Moose River Plains should be reclassified back to a Recreation Area as it was intended to be when it was purchased,promised & sold to the people of the state of New York for that purpose,, I am against any more road closings in the plains in fact I’d be more for re opening some of the roads that were closed Illegally & hiking trails at least cut back and maintained so handicap people could have access to remote primitive areas
The state should
Stop buying forest land that can’t be properly maintained or managed to be a healthy forest not a choked out sick one then classified as a Wild Forest and shut down for all