History, Natural History & the Arts
Last April, Adirondack organizations wrote to the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) asking to rediscover their discretionary power to hold adjudicatory public hearings on particularly complex, controversial Adirondack land use projects.
There was no response to our joint letter, but a rather resounding response has just come from a member of our state’s judicial branch. [Read more…] about Incompetence? Adk Park Agency Loses 2nd Lawsuit Within A Week
Well, it’s happened again. Another state budget is proposed by the Executive, wherein the Adirondack Park Agency’s legislated job is mischaracterized by this Governor’s (and former governors’) budget divisions as working “to achieve a balance between strong environmental protection and sustainable economic development opportunities for the residents of the Adirondack Park” (2023 Executive Budget Briefing Book).
Balance is an important goal to strive for in our individual lives. However, nothing in the Adirondack Park Agency law, now reaching 50 years old in May, calls for “a balance between strong environmental protection and sustainable economic development.” [Read more…] about The Adirondack Park Agency At 50: State Leaders Are Missing The Point
I think of Adirondack conservationist and forever wild advocate Paul Schaefer (1908-1996) during whitetail deer hunting season, actually in any season, but particularly in deer season at his Adirondack cabin. From 1921 on, over a century now, Paul Schaefer and his family, friends and hunting club comrades in the Cataract Club ventured into the wilderness from cabins in the Adirondack mountains. [Read more…] about The Sagacious Whitetail
At Adirondack Wild’s October meeting at the Paul Smith’s Visitor Interpretive Center, lakes and ponds came under the spotlight in a panel discussion about Cooperative Stewardship of Adirondack Lakes. Of particular interest was a given lake’s classification and subsequent comprehensive study, planning and management.
If Adirondack waterbodies are considered part of the Forest Preserve, and for the last fifty years the State Land Master Plan talks about land and water, then the law requires that lakes and ponds be classified, just as forests are. That raises important questions. [Read more…] about Gibson: DEC & APA Should Reform Managing Adirondack Lakes and Ponds
I just skimmed through Eric Stackman’s recent replies to the Adirondack Park Agency (available on the APA website). Stackman, a Miami, Florida developer, wants to construct a 120-lot resort subdivision in Jay, Essex County, above the East Branch of the Ausable River, apparently within sightlines near Whiteface Mountain, Askaard Farm and many other viewing locations. [Read more…] about Another Adirondack Resort Subdivision Proposed Without Conservation Design
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) last held an adjudicatory public hearing in 2011 – the kind of hearing that involves sworn testimony and cross-examination of evidence before a law judge, followed by a full hearing record on which to base a judicious, carefully examined, evidence-based decision.
That 2011 hearing was for the proposed Adirondack Club and Resort subdivision and development near Tupper Lake. In the eleven years since, and despite the many hundreds of permits issued by the APA over that time, including many large, regional projects, not a single adjudicatory public hearing has been convened by the APA. [Read more…] about Adirondack Park Agency Has Not Held An Adjudicatory Hearing In More Than A Decade
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks had hired me the previous winter. It was now the spring of 1987. Windows and doors were again opening to the hope and then the reality of spring’s warmth. The director of the Schenectady Museum William (Bill) Verner had given me, practically rent free, a desk and telephone from which to begin work as the Association’s first Executive Director in over 60 years.
It helped that Bill was a member of my board of trustees, and that his knowledge and love for the Adirondacks and Adirondack history from a home base in Long Lake was long and deep. [Read more…] about The Adirondack Raised Relief Map: Some History
Many organizations introduce their work with the words “were it not for the volunteers, we could not…” That can be justifiably said of the Adirondack Research Library (ARL), formerly part of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AfPA). [Read more…] about The Volunteers Behind the Adirondack Research Library
Adirondack Wild and I have been among those who have heralded the NYS Court of Appeals ruling in May that the only way for the Department of Environmental Conservation to construct snowmobile community connector trails in the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve was through a constitutional amendment.
Protect the Adirondacks lawsuit had taken seven years to reach that court. New York’s high court decision upheld the NYS Constitution’s clause that “the lands of the state…shall be forever kept as wild forest land.” New York State, said the court in so many words, lacked the authority to essentially amend the constitution by administrative fiat. Only the people can do that. We joined Protect in celebrating the most important high court decision affecting the Forest Preserve in 90 years. [Read more…] about David Gibson: In Adirondack Common Cause
On a fall Saturday afternoon in the early 1990s some friends and I met up with wilderness coalition leader Paul Schaefer (1908-1996) at his cabin in Bakers Mills, northern Warren County, NY. Deciding to spend the night, we drove Paul into nearby North Creek for something to eat.
We tried the area’s hotel. One of the hotel staff took a look at Paul’s red plaid hunting jacket and asked him if could change into something more formal. At that, we turned heel and, walking across the street, entered Smith’s Restaurant.
Paul was immediately comfortable, having eaten here many times. Someone greeted him, a fellow deer hunter who remembered him. We took a booth and Paul ordered a steak. [Read more…] about Adirondack Mountains National Park? In 1967 There Was A Plan