Public invited to shape future of Adirondack Park amid policy update for preserved lands
By Gwendolyn Craig
With a nod to Indigenous nations, the Adirondack Park Agency on Thursday kicked off the public process for updating its policy document covering forest preserve lands in the Adirondack Park, including more about accessibility, climate change and visitor management. Some APA board members already had feedback, as did several nonprofit groups, about the process.
The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, which governs the park’s approximately 2.9 million acres of state lands protected by the state Constitution’s “forever wild” clause, is slated for updates every five years.
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APA’s Deputy Director of Planning Megan Phillips and staff gave board members an overview of proposed changes during the agency’s board meeting in Ray Brook. They include:
1. Adding a section to address the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and a requirement in the unit management plan process to assess climate change vulnerabilities;
2. Adding the visitor use management framework to the unit management planning process articulating desired conditions, developing long-term strategies and adapting these strategies through monitoring;
3. Increasing accessibility for people with disabilities;
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4. Broadening the definition of historic areas to include state-registered, not just nationally registered, sites;
5. Allowing for beaver control structures in more areas;
6. Removing a time clock for the state Department of Environmental Conservation to remove non-conforming structures and allowing APA to evaluate DEC’s administrative use of motor vehicles to remove non-conforming structures;
7. Changing the definition of wildlife management structures to include species of special concern, such as loons;
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8. Updating a list of different easements, including conservation easements; and
9. Classifying the newly acquired Four Peaks Tract in Jay and Wilmington as wild forest.
10. Phillips also spearheaded the unusual step of updating the master plan’s opening quote, which since the 1970s was from a passage by William Chapman. With the help of Dave Fadden, a Mohawk tribe member and director of The Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Onchiota, they picked a quote from Oren Lyons, a Haudenosaunee leader from the Onondaga Nation.
Consciousness
Oren Lyons
I do not see a delegation
For the four footed.
I see no seat for the eagles.
We forget and we consider
Ourselves superior,
But we are after all
A mere part of the creation.
And we must consider
To understand where we are.
And we stand somewhere between
The mountain and the ant,
Somewhere and only there
As part and parcel
Of the creation.
–
Part of a message by a leader of the Haudenosaunee to
the non-governmental organizations of the United
Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, September 1977
Phillips said it was right and overdue for the agency to acknowledge and celebrate that the region governed in the plan are the ancestral lands of Indigenous people.
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The board unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the agency to begin the State Environmental Quality Review Act process, which will involve holding three public hearings and one 60-day public comment period. One hearing is expected to be held virtually, one in Albany and one in the Wilmington area. Those meetings and the comment period will be announced at a later date.
The final document requires Gov. Kathy Hochul’s approval.
Adirondack Park Agency board members react
Board Member Zoe Smith proposed edits to the draft, including strengthening a piece around carrying capacity. The term carrying capacity refers to how much of something an environment can withstand before there are negative impacts. For example, a study may look at how many motorized boats a lake can withstand before seeing environmental degradation or public safety issues.
Smith asked that edits include mention of stakeholder involvement and more about protecting natural resources.
Smith also asked if electric bikes should be addressed in the State Land Master Plan. Phillips said certain classes of e-bikes are allowed on the Adirondack Rail Trail and on roads, but there were no proposed changes to e-bike use.
Board Member Arthur Lussi also felt the agency should add mountain biking trails under a section about Mount Van Hoevenberg. Staff said it was included in the mountain’s individual unit management plan, but Lussi still felt it should be included.
“We should be transparent that mountain biking is going on at our ski areas, and we should acknowledge that,” he said.
Jerry Delaney, executive director of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, complained that proposed changes include the deletion of deadlines for unit management plans to be accomplished.
“We’re throwing in the towel on timely completion of unit management plans,” he said. “You’re going to finally recognize you can’t get them done.”
The Explorer wrote an investigative report on unit management plans, pointing out that they are lacking prescribed natural resource and recreation projects for specific areas in the park, and how the state has a backlog of lands with unfinished plans. The incomplete work has frustrated local governments, Delaney said, because without unit management plans, projects beneficial to communities cannot get done.
Phillips felt the change to the State Land Master Plan did not deprioritize unit management plans, but rather “removed irrelevant deadlines.”
Initial reactions from stakeholders
During a break in the meeting, representatives of Protect the Adirondacks, the Adirondack Council and the Adirondack Mountain Club were already criticizing the process.
All three groups felt a second public comment period should be held after the agency’s updates. And Jackie Bowen, director of conservation at the Adirondack Council, thought a fourth public hearing should be scheduled in the western part of the state.
Claudia Braymer, deputy director of Protect the Adirondacks, was also concerned that board members had already offered suggested changes to the document during Thursday’s meeting, but it is unclear how those changes would be added to the draft released to the public.
Bowen told the APA board that the visitor use management portion should make clear that natural resource protection is paramount over human use and enjoyment.
She was also concerned about the striking of deadlines for DEC to remove non-conforming structures, warning it could be a problem as the state acquires new property.
After the meeting Delaney said he found most of what the agency was proposing to be “agreeable.” He was particularly glad to see it address accessibility for people with disabilities.
Top photo: View from Rattlesnake Knob in the Four Peaks Tract in Jay looking toward the Sentinel Range. The Adirondack Park Agency has proposed classifying the area as wild forest as part of its updates to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. Photo courtesy of Adirondack Land Trust/Kathy Woughter
Thank you for your work and contribution
Gwen, thank you as always for covering the APA. The process for making major changes to the State Land Plan have been rushed by APA staff over the summer, introducing and going out to public comment all in one meeting even before the APA’s State Land Committee had a chance to review a draft and discuss in public at an earlier meeting. There is no reason to rush this, in fact, there is every reason to slow down the process to gain inputs and improve the results. The rushed process and lack of deliberation so far shows in some of the more poorly thought out and worded proposals going out for public comment.
Only certain user groups and the environmental lobby are considered stakeholders?