Gwen is the environmental policy reporter for Adirondack Explorer.
Willie Janeway, executive director of the Adirondack Council for the last decade, is stepping down in September. The news follows leadership changes coming for other prominent Adirondack Park organizations including the Barkeater Trails Alliance and Protect the Adirondacks.
Janeway said he is not retiring, and he’s not sure what’s next. It was time for a transition, he said. You can read more here.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed $237 billion state budget did not include carve-outs for visitor safety and management for the Adirondack and Catskills parks in the $400 million environmental protection fund. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has said the money is still available for those items, but Commissioner Basil Seggos noted in his testimony last week that there are differences in opinion over whether an earmark is needed.
Several Adirondack Park organizations called for the line item to be restored. Some, including the Adirondack Mountain Club, also called for it to be boosted from last year’s $8 million to $10 million.
You can read more about Tuesday’s environmental conservation budget hearing here.
Adirondack Park Agency commissioners appear closer to making a decision on wild forest roads and what constitutes a “material increase.” In a more than hour-long discussion last week, they considered a fourth option that may be sent to public comment at next month’s meeting, showing that the other three options may be fading into the background.
These policy questions are important because they could determine whether long-used roads are closed and if local governments support future state land acquisitions. Roads also impact the park’s ecology and in a presentation before commissioners, APA staff showed just how much a relatively small strip of road can impact wildlife habitat, invasive species spread and hydrological systems.
But first, here’s a quick recap on this policy-dense matter that has been circulating since May (and arguably since 1972, though the questions were more recently pressed).
Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul presented her $227 billion executive budget in Albany. Here’s a little glimpse into how it all unfolds for reporters in Albany.
The Adirondack Diversity Initiative has a new director starting next month, Tiffany Rea-Fisher. I spoke with her over the phone last week about her role as an area choreographer and her upcoming role at ADI. Rea-Fisher will take the helm after former Director Nicole Hylton-Patterson left in the fall.
I also spoke with members of ADI’s core team and staff with the Adirondack North Country Association, which houses the ADI program. There will be a push this state budgetary cycle for a $100,000 increase in what the state gave ADI last year ($300,000). You can read more about ADI’s new leader and the organization’s future in our story here.
I’m sorry to report that Gary Lovett, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, died last month while cross country skiing in the Catskills. Lovett was a source I could often turn to about Adirondack forestry issues, and was most recently featured in our January/February issue for a story about hemlock woolly adelgid. I learned of his death this weekend from Mark Whitmore, of the New York State Hemlock Institute at Cornell University. Whitmore and Lovett had recently presented at an Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program summit on invasive species in October. Whitmore said Lovett’s “passing leaves a huge gap in New York’s scientific awareness of issues impacting our forests.”
Tomorrow Gov. Kathy Hochul will present her State of the State address, a blueprint outlining some of her agenda items for the year. We’ll be listening for any Adirondack Park mentions and reading through her State of the State book, which delves into more details on proposed projects statewide. (Editor’s note: This column originally ran in Gwen’s newsletter on Jan. 9. The story is now live here.)
Adirondack Park lawmakers are already slated to have important roles on certain legislative committees. State Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, is the ranking minority member on both the environmental conservation and internet and technology committees. In a news release he said: “From protecting our unique natural resources to improving broadband access and other regionally specific issues, I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure state government takes action to improve our quality of life.” State Assemblyman Matthew Simpson, R-Horicon, was also appointed ranking minority member on the environmental conservation committee.
The end of 2022 was busy with policy news as Gov. Kathy Hochul signed and vetoed remaining bills. On the afternoon of Dec. 23 she signed the 30-by-30 bill setting a conservation goal for the state to protect 30% of its lands and waters by 2030. You can read more on that here.
The Adirondack Park Agency gave its stamp of approval for an RV campground in the town of Mayfield at is monthly meeting last week. It also sent out to public comment plans for an expanded boat launch and a beach closure in Broadalbin, about seven miles from where the campground is planned.
The two projects brought up some interesting questions about the park’s boundary, which does not include the southern tip of Great Sacandaga Lake. You can read more about the projects and the Blue Line discussion here.
Last week, about a couple of hundred people attended a ceremonial groundbreaking of the Champlain Hudson Power Express in Whitehall, including Gov. Kathy Hochul. Whitehall is just outside the Adirondack Park in Washington County. Its population is about 2,485. It’s the birthplace of the U.S. Navy and perhaps also known for its Sasquatch Calling Festival. The village has had its share of building and water infrastructure struggles. I’ve covered some of them in past newspaper jobs, but just this morning I received a New York alert from Whitehall’s department of public works about a water emergency, asking users to conserve water and to look for any signs of a major leak.
John Ernst has been chair of the Adirondack Park Agency for over a year now. I sat down with him and his wife Margot over the summer to see how his new role was going. We also talked about his deep family connection to the Adirondacks, which is how I learned that Ernst’s grandfather, a magician and the attorney for escape artist Harry Houdini, started the multi-generation treks to Elk Lake from New York City.
The Adirondack Park Agency has received criticism for what some say is its lack of transparency regarding the release of old memos about questions staff have posed to commissioners that would interpret a cap on roads in wild forest areas. Commissioners made no determinations at the APA meeting last week, but staff hinted they could be looking for decisions, soon.
Here’s a reminder, quoted from APA Deputy Director of Planning Megan Phillips’s presentation, on the questions:
Last week, voters approved a $4.2 billion environmental bond act and kept Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in office. We took a look at how voters within the Blue Line cast their ballots. Adirondack Park residents heavily favored Hochul’s competition, Republican Lee Zeldin. They also had mixed voting on the bond act.
We are getting to that time of year where you can more easily check hemlock trees for invasive woolly adelgids. The insects sprout white wool to keep them warm in the winter, which is easier to see than the black specks they tend to look like in the spring. Remember to flip the branches over to look.
It’s strange talking about aphids bundling up for the cold weather, though, when it has been such a warm start to November. Some of our local lilac bushes have budded, and my small vegetable garden rebounded with a few grape tomatoes–a tasty surprise, but unsettling. But back to the bugs.
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Big solar, plus APA court decisions
I sifted through the new Office of Renewable Energy Siting’s regulations and talked to some state and nonprofit sources about large-scale solar projects and the permitting process. Some of you have had questions about solar capacity factors and decommissioning, among other things, in my time covering these solar facility permits. We try to answer some of them for you here.
The Adirondack Park Agency lost two separate court decisions —one involving a marina permit on Lower Saranac Lake and another involving an herbicide permit on Lake George. The Court of Appeals case involving a private marina was the first to come out, and in an unanimous opinion judges criticized how the APA has been applying its wetlands regulations. We learned Judge Robert Muller, of the state Supreme Court in Warren County, issued a decision on a Lake George herbicide permit suit that scolded APA for being “one-sided” in its application review and said the agency should have held an adjudicatory hearing. » Continue Reading.