By Mike Lynch and Gwendolyn Craig
Since The Nature Conservancy purchased Follensby Pond and surrounding acres in 2008, Adirondack Park residents and visitors have been waiting to see if the state would obtain the property.
Fast forward to 2024. At a virtual press conference on Feb. 13 the state and TNC announced their “novel” agreement– conservation easements providing limited access to the Follensby Pond watershed and the west bank of the Raquette River, in the towns of Harrietstown and Tupper Lake.
Here’s what we know about this historic deal so far, and its significance for the Adirondacks. We’ll report more as details emerge.
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What are the terms of the deal?
The state is under contract for two conservation easements for $9.3 million. The deal allows the conservancy to retain ownership of the lands. Easements are placed on properties to protect them from development or to allow for public access. (Click here for more information about easements in the Adirondacks.) The deal also means the state and the conservancy will pay land taxes to local communities. One easement is for nearly 6,000 acres and provides recreational access to lands on the western side of the Raquette River, including the Moose Creek watershed. The other, for 8,660 acres, protects the 970-acre Follensby Pond and would allow limited access for “scientific, educational and cultural purposes.” The state and partners are forming a Follensby Research Preserve to study the area. The state is expected to close on the deal this coming spring.
Why easements?
If it purchased the nearly 15,000 acres outright, the site would become forest preserve and open to all. By going the conservation easement route, the state could plan limits on access and potentially better protect an historic, scientific and cultural resource.
Why is this deal important?
Follensby Pond has a rare combination of being culturally and scientifically significant. The Philosophers’ Camp was held there in 1858. The pond itself is as scenic as some other western Adirondack lakes such as Lows and Lila. It contains cold-water habitat that is seen as a refuge for native trout species surviving the disruption of climate change.
What was the Philosophers’ Camp?
In 1858, 10 artists and intellectuals from Massachusetts camped on Follensby Pond for a month. The group included essayist and lecturer Ralph Waldo Emerson and poet James Russell Lowel, scientist Louis Agassiz and writer/artist William James Stillman, who organized the trip. The group hunted, fished, and communed with nature. “The philosophers’ time and creative work in the Adirondacks would contribute to a shifting view of nature and preservation,” according to Adirondack Experience, The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake. “Their work provided evidence of the importance and value of preserving wild places as a source of inspiration and national heritage. Many of their ideas are still echoed in current discussions about preservation.”
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How long has the state been trying to acquire this property?
The state has been trying to acquire Follensby Pond since at least 1990. It helped fuel the 1993 creation of the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), which contains money for purchasing land, according to the Adirondack Council. The property has also been in the Open Space Conservation Plan, where the state identifies key lands to purchase, since the first drafts in the 1990s. After the Nature Conservancy purchased the land in 2008 from the conservation-minded McCormick family, it was anticipated the state would buy it for the Adirondack Forest Preserve. However, the conservancy and state prioritized working out a deal on the 161,000 former Finch, Pruyn lands that the conservancy had bought in 2007, and the Follensby deal got put on hold. That Finch Pruyn deal took about a decade to complete.
What makes Follensby Pond scientifically unique?
Peter McIntyre, an aquatic conservation ecologist at Cornell University, said Follensby Pond is among the “less than 1% of Adirondack lakes” deep enough and cold enough for certain kinds of fish including lake trout. “Adirondack lakes are increasingly threatened by oxygen depletion of the cold bottom waters that lake trout and other fishery species depend on as our climate changes,” he said. Follensby Pond’s physics make it “a great candidate for high climate resilience and restoration-oriented research,” McIntyre added. However, Follensby Pond has a limited brook trout population because pike — which prey on brookies — are present in its water. Brook trout do live in the streams connected to the lake.
What environmental conservation work has taken place there?
Follensby was the site of the last active eagle nest in the Adirondacks in the 1950s before the bird’s numbers dramatically declined due to the use of DDT. In the early 1980s, DEC’s endangered species unit head Peter Nye chose Follensby as the first Adirondack site to bring the iconic bird back to the region. “It was so remote, we had to take all the supplies across the lake by boat, and we built hacking cages up in huge hemlock trees like big tree forts,” Nye told the Explorer in a 2011 article.
What recreational opportunities will there be for the public?
The 5,985-acre easement along the western shores of the Raquette River is expected to be open to the public for non-motorized recreation including camping, picnicking, hiking, hunting and fishing. The Raquette River is part of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which stretches from the Adirondacks to Maine, and is popular with paddlers and boaters. New fishing opportunities are expected on Moose Creek and Beaver Brook, “which offer outstanding brook trout fishing,” according to a news release. “Hunters will be able to access new remote locations. Existing hunting leases on the full property will continue.” More will be known once the easements are finalized.
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Will the Follensby Pond outlet that connects to the Raquette River be accessible?
The beginning of the outlet is within the state forest preserve open to the public. But the land surrounding the outlet that is within the pond easement remains privately owned so general public access to that area is not permitted.
Will the general public be able to see Follensby Pond?
Petronis said there will be some form of limited public access to Follensby Pond. “We have to sort all of that out,” Petronis said. “But yes, we do anticipate that we will come up with a program that will allow folks who want to get in and see the pond, to be able to go and see the pond.” The conservancy said the easement allows for managed access to this area for “educational opportunities.” The organization will be working with the community and stakeholders on guided trips that would permit the public to experience and learn about the land. That includes collaborating with the Tupper Lake’s Wild Center to explore educational and interpretive programs.
Will fishing be allowed on Follensby Pond?
Katie Petronis, the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s deputy commissioner of natural resources, said no fishing of any kind will be allowed on the pond.
What is the Follensby Research Preserve?
The Nature Conservancy and the state Department of Environmental Conservation are establishing a Follensby Research Preserve, a consortium of environmental organizations to study the impacts of climate change on fisheries. Partners include the DEC, The Nature Conservancy, Cornell University, Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. Trout Unlimited Vice President for Eastern Conservation Keith Curley said it will be “a boon to wild trout conservation in New York,” to study the pond. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, which will be part of studying the pond and its watershed, said it will be important for understanding the impacts of climate change.
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What access will Indigenous people have to Follensby Pond?
The watershed and habitat is in Haudenosaunee and Abenaki homelands, state officials said, and promised access to the restricted area at Follensby Pond to Indigenous people for “cultural practices, including ceremonies, gathering and foraging.” Robin Kimmerer, director for the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, said she looked “forward to creating opportunities for a productive collaboration between traditional ecological knowledge and conservation science based on mutual respect, reciprocity and shared access.”
How did Indigenous people use the land historically?
The Penobscot, Abenaki, Oneida and Mohawk are all known to have hunted, fished and lived in this region. An old portage trail, extending from Upper Saranac Lake to Stony Creek Ponds, still carries the name Indian Carry Road, and there are indications that the carry reached all the way to the Raquette River at the northeast border of the Follensby Pond tract. Paul Smith’s College Professor Curt Stager has found flint flakes and pottery in the shallows of Follensby Pond. “Ultimately, restored relationships with this land will be shaped by Indigenous perspectives,” the conservancy said.
Why the limited public access?
“We really wanted to get it right,” Petronis said. “It’s just an incredibly special property and I think when The Nature Conservancy first purchased it, we did have a lot of discussions about the best use of the site, whether the pond could support fishing and broader public access, and it caused us to really take a look at the resources and spend a lot of time to have our fisheries experts, TNC’s fisheries experts, research the site better to understand the population of fish. … This consortium structure I’m really excited about. I think it’s got a huge possibility to be used to help guide fisheries management and scientific understanding of Adirondack ponds and resources in the future in a way that we don’t really have anywhere else.“
Could the state later acquire the property and add it to the forest preserve?
Petronis said she didn’t know if that would ever be the case. “We spent a number of years identifying what we thought was the right outcome for the site, and I really wouldn’t want to speak to anything that we may or may not do in the future. I think we’re really excited about the outcome now.”
Top photo: An aerial view of Follensby Pond. Photo by Carl Heilman II, courtesy of The Nature Conservancy
(Editor’s note: This post was updated on February 27 with additional information from The Nature Conservancy.)
Wow what a change very disappointed. Camped and fished lake in the 70’s and 80’s used to catch splake in the morning for breakfast. Heard lake was reclaimed in the 50’s to make it only a trout lake. Now I cannot fish anymore, real bummer.
Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron used New York’s Executive Law § 63(12) to investigate and prosecute cases of alleged civil fraud without finding “clear and convincing evidence” but instead relied on the statute’s “intent to commit fraud” provision and thus hammer President Trump with an outrageous fine of $350MM. Trump’s 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th Amendment rights were violated, but I digress.
Now that the precedent has been set, New York State now has a license to steal and can acquire more land in the Adirondacks from large landowners by simply alleging that they have committed fraud in the acquisition, use or mortgaging of said land, and then seizing it; the third-world State of New York can now acquire land on the cheap and continue to convert the Adirondacks into a green dystopia.
You large landowners in the Adirondacks might want to sell now and get your money out of New York State before the other shoe drops.
Thank you for the very clear description and maps, describing what the changes mean and why the changes DO NOT include unimpeded public access to Follensby Pond itself. I do hope guided trips on the Pond will be offered as well as clear offerings of how the public might volunteer and help.
Will there be active forest management allowed
in the agreement?
Charles, you logic is, well, psychotic…
… enjoy your day!
That New York suspended its Statute of Limitations for just one man, Trump, to allow a woman to sue him for something that allegedly occurred decades ago and could not be corroborated is a glaring example of an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.
Who knew that New York’s Executive Law § 63(12) could be used to violate Article 1 § 5 (excessive bail, excessive fines) of New York’s Constitution and also violate Trump’s 7th and 8th Amendment rights under the US Constitution?
New York and Albany, and by extension the entire state, is now a sanctuary state where the right and privileges of citizenship are now extended to illegal aliens in violation of existing laws and norms. Even if a majority of the voters wanted this situation doesn’t make it less tyrannical and less immoral.
What makes you think New York won’t behave the same way when it comes to private land landownership both inside and outside of the Adirondack Blue Line? In addition to its ability to seize land under eminent domain New York now has another tool to seize land, Executive Law § 63(12).
To you and those who think like you Mr. Eastman, please stay in New York. You’ll be happier there.
Who knew that New York’s Executive Law § 63(12) could be used to violate Article 1 § 5 (excessive bail, excessive fines) of New York’s Constitution and also violate the 7th and 8th Amendment rights under the US Constitution?
In addition to its ability to seize land under eminent domain New York now has another tool to seize land, Executive Law § 63(12).
I stand by my original post, Todd.
RE:- “Will the Follensby Pond outlet that connects to the Raquette River be accessible?
The beginning of the outlet is within the state forest preserve open to the public. But the land surrounding the outlet that is within the pond easement remains privately owned so general public access to that area is not permitted.”
I wonder where the “navigable-in-fact ” laws would come into play here? The courts decide that status, so I’m sure that the state would control that outcome.
https://dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/boating/accessing-navigating-waterways
If a rich person bought Follensby, preserved it as it is, and restricted access people would not say this was wonderful. But when the state does it the same people are happy. What’s the difference? They took the money from NYS taxpayers, but did the deal in a way that let them not give public access. Seems like the state is just donating tax money to the Nature Conservancy? Let me do that on my own and use tax money where it belongs.