Tree removal proposed to open views along popular highway
By Gwendolyn Craig
The state Department of Environmental Conservation plan for tree-clearing on a Lake George mountain is in violation of the state Constitution, an environmental watchdog group contends.
The department released its intentions to cut more than 13,000 trees obstructing several highway overlooks on Prospect Mountain.
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Protect the Adirondacks, an environmental organization that has successfully challenged the DEC’s tree-cutting plans in the past, says the amount of trees felled would be unconstitutional.
The Prospect Mountain Day Use Area includes the Veterans Memorial Highway, a 5.5-mile road built in 1969 winding up to the summit. The route is popular for its views of Lake George, Vermont’s Green Mountains and other Adirondack peaks.
In a forest preserve work plan, the state notes “a lack of ordinary maintenance that began during the pandemic as the facility was closed during the 2020 and 2021 operating seasons” has created several years of new trees partially obstructing these views.
The work plan includes cutting 284 trees that are three-inches or greater in diameter at breast height and 13,109 trees that are between one- and three-inches in diameter at breast height. The plan was subject to a 30-day public comment period that began in early September.
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Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, claims the level of tree cutting violates Article 14 of the state constitution, which designates forest preserve lands as “forever wild.”
Deputy Director Claudia Braymer called on the DEC to withdraw its plans and “prepare a constitutionally-compliant proposal.”
The DEC said it is considering all comments and did not respond to questions about the plan’s constitutionality or when it would make a decision on the work.
Protect the Adirondacks sued the DEC over plans to cut trees for community connector snowmobile trails in the Adirondack Park. In 2021, the state’s highest court ruled in the organization’s favor, leading the DEC to now count trees smaller than three-inches in diameter at breast height for its forest preserve work.
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The Prospect Mountain Day Use Area and the Lake George Wild Forest, which includes a hiking trail up Prospect Mountain, do not have unit management plans. These plans include both natural resource protection and recreational projects and must be authorized by the Adirondack Park Agency, in charge of public and private development in the park. Without a unit management plan, significant projects cannot be undertaken.
Protect the Adirondacks argued that the DEC should refrain from “this significant work” without a management plan.
Instead, the group contends, the DEC could be “restoring, rerouting and repairing the extremely steep, rocky, and washed-out hiking trail” of Prospect Mountain. That trail “serves untold numbers of visitors from all over the world who are visiting the Lake George area, which may be their only experience hiking in the Adirondacks,” Protect wrote in a news release.
The Explorer highlighted this trail as one section of about 782,000 acres in the forest preserve lacking a management plan.
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In its work plan, the DEC said the scenic highway up Prospect Mountain was designated by the state Legislature to provide vista opportunities for people of all abilities.
“To restore this historic desired condition of the scenic overlooks, a large quantity of trees must be cut as these areas have grown in over time,” according to the work plan.
The DEC also quoted part of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, the leading policy document governing the forest preserve, that says “scenic vistas from these travel corridors are relatively rare and their protection and enhancement are important.”
Top photo: A view from the summit of Prospect Mountain in Lake George. Photo courtesy of Protect the Adirondacks
“13,109 trees that are between one- and three-inches in diameter at breast height”. Sounds more like brush cutting to me. So when road crews cut back the brush and trees from the sides of roadways and power lines it violates the state consitution?
Only when protect the Adirondacks realizes it may lead to a persons enjoyment. Which has me wondering, if they are suggesting trail maintenance, they must be planning to save the mountain from human feet.
284 trees over 3″ sounds to me like cutting has been neglected for far longer than just since the pandemic. What was the State’s original plan for maintaining the overlooks WRT vegetation and views? Did it have a mandate even then? If not, We need to take a serious look at ANY overlooks in the Park and IF they can be legally maintained. I am all for the overlooks being maintained for views, so let’s look at figuring out how to manage the sites and keep maintenence within the principles of preservation. After all, the trees were trees before they reached 3″ diameter.
I also see in the picture plenty of sumacs (more of a big shrub) that don’t grow to be particularly high or dense. They tend to spread well on their own and aren’t particularly devastated by “topping”. They help maintain soil integrity on a slope and can help with controlling larger dense trees from taking over. They also bear beneficial food for wildlife. In other words, can we be more selective in what we cut and how?
The picture that they show isn’t even the bad one. The third overlook, called The Eagle’s Eye is so bad you can’t even see the lake at all, except maybe in the winter when the leaves are off.
If it has a road, it is anything but “wild.”
Protect blows.
Protect the views! Cut the trees. We really do need a Constitutional convention to really see how citizens of this state feel about this lack of Forrest management in Adirondacks
Another area that needs a major tree cutting near Prospect Mt. is the Exit-22 rest area on the Northway, I-87. It hasn’t been possible to see the south end of Lake George near the village from that rest area for many years. The main reason for building the rest area there was for viewing the lake. For some reason, the state didn’t prevent the trees from growing up between the rest area and the southbound lane of the Northway. Now those trees are fully grown and completely block the view of the lake.
Jon
The whole Northway, needs cutting.
Yes, by all means lets demand a “Unit Management Plan” that will cost the taxpayers of New York even more money and delay the project for God only knows how long.
We’re not talking about taking a logging crew and heavy equipment into the middle of the High Peaks to cut a bunch of old growth trees, we’re talking about what amounts to a bunch of saplings growing right off the side of a public roadway. I know the location well and I am not exaggerating.
Its no wonder people are leaving New York in droves. It takes an act of God and a boatload of money to get anything accomplished in this state.
Who is the local Indigenous American tribe in that area? They should be an advisor when people can’t agree or interpret the Constitution correctly. Have all options been discussed? Can the new growth trees be transported to other areas or even sold to the public? How about tree trimming? The gardeners for my apartment landscaping trim all of the trees as fall approaches. This allows light and sunshine to filter through during colder temperatures and opens up the view after heavy accumulation of foliage during summer months to keep cool. Nature usually has its own timing but the Bible does say “ take the earth and subdue it”. That’s a tough decision! Good luck!
Shame on DEC for this. Trees are such an important part of the environment. Looks like DEC doesn’t really care about nature. Government corruption.
This has got me in a tizzy! How dare DEC propose cutting saplings that have grown since COVID due to lack of maintenance that are now obstructing the views from Prospect Mountain’s Veterans Memorial Highway, and ruining Peter Bauer’s wilderness experience. This calls for bold action to protect us from the mindless destruction of the wilderness, and a counter-productive proposal to accelerate forest reclamation. Maybe trenches should be dug across the roadway every 50-100 feet, just like McIntyre East and West. That’s real wilderness recreation climbing in and out of those trenches along the former roadways for 5 miles to Lake Andrew or Cheney Cobble! Hopefully DEC will dig them really deep, and have its own brainchild, Forrester Tater Tot, develop such a plan, with sanctimonious blessings from Herr Bauer. Really, how many people actually drive up the Veterans Memorial Highway to enjoy the views from Prospect Mountain anyway? My brother for sure, but not me. And why should we even care when they can just drive further north to the Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway where no trees grow on its summit. Problem solved!
TooFarGone , you are totally correct, most readers will have no idea what you are referring to,but I do. The trenching that was done is inexcusable, the sad part is the higher ups in Albany had no idea ( supposedly) that this work was being performed. I wish more people knew the full story on the destruction of these roads. It really is a shame, it’s pretty horrible to walk these areas . The Prospect mtn. proposal is nothing more than brush cutting that hasn’t been kept up with over the last several years. People will see the sensational headline and the uninformed will think that they are clear cutting Prospect Mtn. In today’s world there is much talk about spreading misinformation, Peter Bauer is a master.
TO ANY “SHORT-SIGHTED” HUMANS WITH POOR PERCEPTION : You don”t have to waste millions cutting and killing 13,000 healthy saplings or trees to enjoy a view. You can less expensively use pole saws to prune the branches of saplings that are in the line of sight of a view, while leaving the trunks, and at the same time remove weakly attached double leaders to do a structural pruning. THEN, YOU CAN ENJOY A VIEW WITHOUT MAKING AN EYESORE VIEW OF A HIGHWAY FOR PEOPLE IN THE VALLEY TO HAVE TO SEE !
This group hired a business that is not New York based or even local ! Are N.Y. loggers that bad?
Environmentalists’ use of the word “trees” here is in my opinion highly misleading. All these thousands of trees are basically just saplings that start to grow up over previously cleared areas and just need to be re-cleared to maintain the views which are important for many people. Should be common sense and non-contentious! The definition of a tree has been defined way too strictly in my opinion, and when you talk about cutting 13,000 trees, people are going to freak out over what should be a non-issue. The definition of a “tree” really should be corrected to refer to mature trees only.
Only when protect the Adirondacks realizes it may lead to a persons enjoyment. Which has me wondering, if they are suggesting trail maintenance, they must be planning to save the mountain from human feet.
Here’s a guideline to consider in relationship to what the USDA
uses to determine a “tree”.
It’s a game of semantics to sensationalize the headline.
The minimum diameter at breast height (DBH) for a tree in the National Forest Inventory (NFI) is 4 centimeters. Trees with a DBH less than 4 centimeters are typically not recorded.
4 centimeters = a little over 1.5 inches.
One would assume that when the State Constitution permitted the construction of a “scenic” highway it was for perpetuity, not only until the trees grew back as it’s known they would.
As someone who recently lived nearby and often was on this mountain by road and trail, I think that is a poor choice of picture evidence. I have noticed the continual lack of maintenance and the overlooks are very overgrown now. When I drove visiting family up recently I was disappointed you could really only get a good view from the top.
I am happy to hear they would like something done with the trail from the village. To truly improve it they would need to do major trail work and reroute the whole thing as it currently follows the old tram rail, it is basically a errored gully straight down the mountain. It would be much more cost effective to close that trail and direct people to the LG Recreation Center and revitalize the trail there. It also offer a large parking lot while the village only offers street parking. I have been telling people for years that the Prospect trail from the village is the worst trail in the Adirondacks. The two other trails are much more enjoyable options.
Tree cutting and brushing is legal along highways is considered essential to the safety and use of the highway system. That is my understanding of the current state and why it is permitted.
If the DEC hadn’t allowed the brush to turn into trees, we wouldn’t be here at all.
This scale of tree cutting has been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.
Unit Management Plans are valuable and help guide these kinds of projects.
Exactly.
Nailed it.
Sounds like the brush got a little out of hand, so just needs to get caught back up. Maybe DEC is dealing with a lack of staffing like everyone else in the world… let’s just fix it and move on best we can
Don’t the Environmental advocates have anything better to concern themselves with? For example, taking farmlands and deconstructing wooded areas to put up environmentally friendly solar panels.
Who is actually in charge of NYS forests, the Environmental lobby advocates and their lawyers or the NYSDEC?