Remediation part of the settlement process
By Gwendolyn Craig
A limited liability company associated with Word of Life Fellowship was penalized $1,000 for filling in a wetland on Schroon Lake in the town of Chester without an Adirondack Park Agency permit, according to a recent settlement agreement.
Camp SLNY LLC will also be responsible for implementing a wetland mitigation plan and annually reporting to the APA on its remediation progress for at least five years. The APA oversees public and private development in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park.
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The property in question is the site of a Word of Life campground called The Pines at 8260 State Route 9. Word of Life leases the land from the limited liability company, which has a Columbus, Ohio, address as well as the same post office box as Word of Life Fellowship. The Word of Life Fellowship is a religious nonprofit with extensive camping and educational holdings and operations in the Schroon Lake area.
The company’s representative is listed as Jonathan Price, who is a Word of Life board member. The LLC is paying taxes on the property, and bills are directed to the LLC in care of Bob Brown at Word of Life. Brown is a former vice president of the fellowship and a Bob G. Brown has been a paid director for years, records show.
Price signed the settlement agreement on Nov. 1. APA Executive Director Barbara Rice signed it on Nov. 8. Records show communications about the wetland violations were also copied to Eric Messer, vice president of operations and central services at Word of Life.
John B. Nelson, treasurer and director of the Word of Life Foundation, declined to comment. He said Price would also decline to comment.
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Freshwater wetlands benefit both wildlife, plants and humans, an APA spokesperson said. They are important habitats, filter surface water and mitigate storm and flood impacts.
“The Agency’s permit review process is essential to guiding development in a way that ensures adverse impacts to wetlands are avoided so that their ecological benefits and functions are protected,” the spokesman added.
The LLC hired Studio A Landscape Architecture and Engineering, of Saratoga Springs, to draft and supervise a mitigation plan. In that document was a wetlands survey for a project called The Pines–Lakeside, made for Word of Life Fellowship Inc. Bolster and Associates conducted the survey in 2016, which was part of a larger project at the family camp.
The landowner, Studio A wrote, was unaware of the survey and claimed the APA’s GIS maps did not delineate the area’s wetlands.
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Between the summer of 2023 and the spring of 2024, the LLC had sand fill placed in the wetlands from an upland area to the Schroon Lake shoreline. Two upland areas were also cleared of trees and shrubs for a truck staging area, according to the mitigation plan.
In the spring, the APA received complaints about the construction work.
After several site visits, the agency provided notice of an apparent violation of the Adirondack Park Agency Act requiring a permit “prior to any deposit of fill in a wetland in the Adirondack Park.”
By June 1, the LLC must pay the $1,000 fine, remove all sand fill from the wetland and adjacent areas, plant and restore the site and provide the APA with documentation of the conditions of all the restored areas.
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The LLC plans to use the fill “for other on-going active construction and site improvement projects,” according to Studio A.
Studio A also said it will plant sweet gale, speckled alder, red maple and royal fern to replace the removed vegetation. The landowner will use erosion control mats and seed and mulch the upland areas. Studio A noted that the impacted areas “have experienced erosion during recent heavy storms this summer.”
The agency said there are currently no other enforcement matters involving the property. The settlement agreement notes it shall not limit “the agency’s right to seek additional relief or penalties for any violations on the lot.”
Top photo: A photo of the now-cleared property Word of Life leases from a board-member-run limited liability company for its campground called The Pines. The company and the Adirondack Park Agency signed a settlement agreement for the company’s backfilling of a wetland without an agency permit. Photo provided by the Adirondack Park Agency
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