Friday, June 4, 2021

Albany session is winding down

lake champlainI’ve had a few folks write me asking about the progress of the Adirondack Rail Trail.

Phil Brown actually rode some of it! In case you missed his story, take a look here.

The state legislative session is winding down, but that just means the work is ramping up. There are so many bills to keep track of, and I doubt legislators will get to all that were proposed this year. For example, I haven’t seen any movement around the conservation design bill. I also haven’t seen any movement on some of the constitutional amendments in the pipeline, such as Hamilton County’s request to put an emergency communications tower on Cathead Mountain.

We’ll see how much gets done before the official last day of the session, June 10.

At the Explorer, we are also busy wrapping up the July/August issue of the magazine. I’ll have as much of an update as I’m able to provide you on the tree-cutting case the New York State Court of Appeals decided at the beginning of May. Many of you have asked the same questions I have asked the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Adirondack Park Agency for about a month now–like what does this actually mean for trail work and other projects in the Adirondacks? We can hear from as many experts as we want, but ultimately it will be DEC and APA who have to do something about this decision. So far, my questions are going unanswered. I’ll keep checking in, and we will post updates as we have them.

I’ll leave you with my view of Lake Champlain on one of my assignments (pictured here). Take care!

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Gwen is the environmental policy reporter for Adirondack Explorer.




One Response

  1. Alex says:

    How can you not mention the debacle going on with boat inspection legislation which has now expired? But there seems to be multiple bills by both the senate and assembly doing really odd authorizations for DEC. LG mirror said Jones pulled his bill and seemingly doesn’t want the same as the senate. No one knows what this bill does but its less than 2 weeks old and could be the best chance for a park wide mandatory inspection bill the State has this year.

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