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The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is proposing to amend both the 5 Mile Conservation Easement (CE) Interim Recreation Management Plan (IRMP) and the CE portion of the Raquette Boreal Wild Forest Unit Management Plan (UMP) to construct a road between the Five Mile and the Kildare Conservation Easements in Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County.
The project involves the construction of a new road approximately 1.25 miles in length. The road will provide access to many miles of motor vehicle roads on the Kildare Easement Lands. It will also provide non-motorized recreational access to the adjacent Raquette River Wild Forest and Raquette-Jordan Boreal Primitive Area.
“This road will allow motor vehicle access for the first time to thousands of acres of the Kildare Conservation Easement. The public can use the road through the Five Mile Conservation Easement from May 1 through September 30 for recreational opportunities, such as hiking, mountain biking, nature observation, and fishing,” Regional Director Judy Drabicki said in a statment to the press.
The draft amendment plan can be found on the DEC website. Public comment on the draft amendment plan will be taken for 45 days beginning September 12, 2017 and ending October 27, 2017. The public can submit comments via email: R6.ump@dec.ny.gov or in writing to Peter D’Luhosch, Conservation Easement Specialist, NYS DEC 6739 US Hwy. 11, Potsdam, NY 13676 or by calling (315) 265-3090.
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interesting – this no only opens up CE lands to the public, but according to this map, opens up miles of roads maintained by private property owners and access to remote private property.
Further, this road will enhance access to the very boreal forest areas that the DEC monitors regularly for Spruce Grouse activity. This connector provides means to access private properties and private roads where DEC employees are being paid reestablish the population of these birds. What a waste.
And who is going to monitor illegal vehicular traffic, including 4-wheelers, on the neighboring private roads and properties? DEC going to hire law enforcement for this? Does the DEC have plans for helping private property owners in that area with road maintenance and security for their remote camps? Promises yes, delivery very unlikely.
This plan falls short of plans to protect the adjacent private properties and compromises the Spruce Grouse project we the taxpayers have supported over the years. Gates may be the answer, but we know that gates only keep the honest folks out and who will manage responsible distribution of keys or codes?
If you read the draft amendment plan, you would know that there is an escrow account for the road, it appears the money is not state money. Also, there is ALREADY vehicle access by dozens of lease camp members, so the spruce grouse argument is not valid. And if you have ever canoed across Cary Falls and tried to carry your boat the mile or so to the Jordan River, you would know that the lease camp members have absolutely NO respect for forest preserve lands. ATV’s have damaged the carry extensively. So it seems that most people opposed to the road are those who already have access and don’t want the rest of us, who have already paid for the rights through our taxes, to enjoy those lands. And again, if I read the amendment correctly, there will be no public ATV use on the property. So the only people on ATV’s will be lease camp members and private property owners. Go there to find your trespassers.
“This road will allow motor vehicle access for the first time to thousands of acres of the Kildare Conservation Easement. The public can use the road through the Five Mile Conservation Easement from May 1 through September 30 for recreational opportunities, such as hiking, mountain biking, nature observation, and fishing,”
There’s a little irony in this statement…
I saw that too Chris. Very strange how the powers that be operate.
I am quite familiar with the Five Mile easement corridor as I belong to the hunting club leasing the land surrounding the road. The road was opened to the public in 2007 for the period of May 1-September 30 but public use has been minimal.
According to the easement, the State was responsible for maintenance on the road. The State did put up parking areas with handicap parking, a real farce way out in the woods, but have not spent one dime on the road in ten years while it overgrows and became difficult to drive. Typical of the State in the Adirondacks to buy something and then provide no funds to maintain it.
Roads! Just a few days ago I was on a rural road in the southern Adirondacks where I pulled over near a beaver pond to take photos and also to take-in the silence. And silent it was once my engine was off and I was stepped out. A barred owl shouted out from the wooded hills on the other side of this pond, minor birds chirped here and there and there was another animal note I was not familiar with. Such a lovely sound the owl puts out. As I stood there waiting for the next round of hoo’s I heard a car coming. It came it went and for at least a minute all of that quietude around me was drowned out. Cars are loud! To find a quiet place to go to get away from them is not an easy thing nowadays. I was so into that quiet space and when that car passed through I lambasted it for ruining my serenity. To think how so few car-less places there are….and they want to build more roads!
It is odd, but the noisiest thing about cars are typically the tires!
But cars are nuthin’ compared to Harleys. I remember in Yellowstone I could follow the sound of one Harley halfway through the park! And a group of them was even worse. You could hear them all day and most of the night. Soitude indeed! Seems silly noise restrictions don’t seem to apply to them. They apparently have a strong lobby.
Harleys with guns.
Funny how you say this after driving your own car in???? “once my engine was off”. crazy.
Funny? Crazy? I drive Paul which does not make me a hypocrite nor does it mean I am less sensitive to the pollution (noise & air) cars emit!
Don’t you know Paul? ‘Rules are for thee, not for me!’
Just what the Adirondacks needs, more roads.
Yes Dan! That’s us! Build build build more roads. Roads are a curse to a wilderness. You would think the DEC would know that. The neo DEC!
Ther DEC has closed far more miles of roads than it has opened on state owned land. Just look at Boreas and other recent buys. Close many many miles, then maybe leave open a few or add a mile. Do the math. This type of comment totally misrepresents what the state is doing.
Geez. Sounds like a good idea to me. Why spend public money on easements and wild forest east of Carey Falls reservoir if there’s practically no way for public access. And this is not designated wilderness so I see no harm in the noise from an occasional vehicle. I suspect many of the negatives are from private landowners who want to exclude everyone else.
or maybe the negatives come from private landowners who return to their remote camps to find them vandalized, and who spend good weather months picking up trash and repairing private roads torn up by members of the public who gain legal access to easement lands, but then help themselves to roads and properties that are owned by private citizens. .
There are dozens of conservation easements with camps on them throughout the Adirondacks. Do you have any proof at all that camps are broken into more frequently, by members of the public who recreate on easements, than other camps or homes are?
You always try to justify the blunders the DEC makes by the good they do Paul. The collateral damage attitude…as if one makes up for the other. I don’t agree! It’s either they are there to defend the wilderness wholly like they are supposed to do or launch periodic attacks against it which they are known for doing, sometimes to espouse the cause of a corporation as was the case with NYCO Minerals a few years back and there was also some siding with the gas companies behind closed doors during the fracking debate before that was nixed in this state. Math goes in many directions Paul and never are the numbers always uniform.
I do not deny that New York State has a very good track record for the good they have done to protect what we have ecologically, better than most states combined, but they are not perfect Paul and there have been some shady things over the years which makes sense knowing how ‘big money’ has a major influence on just about every aspect of the governing systems in this country. Or didn’t you know?