The Adirondack Land Trust has announced the addition of three new board members who bring expertise in private land conservation, farmland access for young farmers, and communications.
The mission of the Adirondack Land Trust is to forever conserve the forests, farmlands, waters and wild places that advance the quality of life of our communities and the ecological integrity of the Adirondacks. The land trust has protected 26,628 acres since its founding in 1984. » Continue Reading.
The Hudson River Valley has been intensely studied by scientists for decades, but many of the river’s science stories are not well known by the people who call the Hudson home.
Once again, Cary Institute educators are challenging middle school and high school students to creatively tell the stories of Hudson Valley environmental data in its annual Hudson Data Jam competition. » Continue Reading.
The Lake George Land Conservancy (LGLC) closed on the purchase of 212 acres in the Town of Bolton on December 20, 2019. The property was part the Twin Pines Resort owned by the McGurl family. The resort is expected to be unaffected by the sale. The LGLC will hold the property until the Town of Bolton is able to purchase it from LGLC encumbered with a conservation easement. This transfer is expected to take place in early 2020.
The property includes about 20 acres of wetlands and 3,000 feet of stream corridor, and is adjacent to the popular Cat and Thomas Mountains Preserve owned by the New York State Department of Conservation (NYSDEC). » Continue Reading.
The St. Lawrence Watershed lies at the border of New York State and Canada. The St. Lawrence River serves as the gateway between the North Atlantic and the Great Lakes. At its most downstream point in the United States, the Saint Lawrence drains an area of nearly 300,000 square miles.
The area within New York State covered by the watershed revitalization plan includes a 5,600-square-mile region that spans the Northern and Western Adirondacks and the lake plains of the St. Lawrence Valley, including the villages and cities of Clayton, Alexandria Bay, Theresa, Potsdam, Canton, Tupper Lake, Paul Smith’s, Ogdensburg, Malone, and Massena. » Continue Reading.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 State of the State speech included two big pieces of good news for the Adirondack Park.
The first major highlight was his proposal for a $3 Billion Restore Mother Nature Bond Act that will support a variety of pressing environmental and climate change challenges across New York. This proposal is the first listed in the 2020 State of the State book that accompanied the speech.
The following essay was authored by Assemblyman Steven Englebright and State Senator Todd Kaminsky.
The 2019 legislative session was a great one for New York’s environment. As the chairs of the Environmental Conservation Committees in both houses, we were pleased to talk with Adirondack residents and visitors about the session in late September when we came to the park to discuss next year’s agenda.
The Adirondacks aren’t just New York’s largest park, they are a national treasure and a shining example of long-term conservation that serves as a model for the world. » Continue Reading.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was established in 1970 on the first-ever Earth Day.
In the 50 years since, Adirondackers have seen a revolution in the way we interact with our environment. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970; in 1971 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established, followed by the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972. The Adirondack Park Agency Act was passed in 1971, and the State’s Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) in 1980, the same year as the Superfund Law. In 1993 the Environmental Protection Fund was established.
A student at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry is conducting a capstone project about daily use of Siamese Ponds Wilderness. The research is focused on scenic quality of wilderness and wilderness use by residents and visitors.
The survey is anonymous and can be found here.
“What a horrifyingly garish sight,” I said to my friend as we surveyed my Christmas tree last year. We had just finished decorating it and my eyes were sending messages to my brain, like, “Hey, this is really tacky.”
Truth is, the décor I had accumulated after years of city dwelling in my sassy twenties looked awfully out of place in my humble Vermont cabin. What I once thought dazzling – glitter-coated icicles, a miniature disco ball, a purple-feathered bird with jeweled eyes, flocks of shiny gold and green balls – now looked as out of place as a pink flamingo at my bird feeder. Even the duck decoy my great uncle carved seemed to give the gaudy fiasco an alarmed stare. Such a tree no longer belonged in my world. » Continue Reading.
One of the things I like the most about the holidays, besides the fact that I get to decorate my house with Victorian gaudiness, is that people don’t question other people’s need for food and gifts.
We give to Toys for Tots, Holiday Helpers, Tri-Lakes Humane Society, and “run” Turkey Trots for food pantries. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Park Agency’s decision to classify the magnificent Boreas Ponds Tract to authorize motorized use of Gulf Brook Road is a done deal.
The State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC’s) management plan to improve that road, establish parking, and allow permitted cars to drive to within a couple hundred yards of the Boreas Ponds is in the implementation phase.
In other words, the governmental custodians of the Boreas Tract will be allowing vehicular access deep into the Boreas Tract. Now the only question is whether the Adirondacks itself will allow vehicular access deep into the Boreas Tract. I would not be too sure about that. » Continue Reading.
The Ausable River Association (AsRA) has been awarded a $100,000 Best Management Practices for Pollution Reduction grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP).
The funding supports replacement of an undersized and failing culvert on Otis Brook in Jay, NY. This will be AsRA’s sixth installation of a Climate-Ready-Culvert and is part of their wider effort to restore stream health by reducing sedimentation of waterways, to improve wildlife habitat, and to create flood resilience for communities in the Ausable watershed. » Continue Reading.
Adirondack Wilderness Advocates (AWA) has announced its incorporation as a non-profit 501(3)(c) charitable corporation dedicated to the purpose of advancing public knowledge, enjoyment, expansion, and protection of the Adirondack Park’s wildest places. AWA also named its initial Board of Directors.
“I am very excited to be a part of AWA,” Board Chair Bill Ingersoll said in an announcement sent to the press. “We want to make a difference. Our goal is to ensure our wilderness areas are managed in a sound, ecologically intact way, and enlarged in a manner that protects the remotest places in the Adirondack Park while respecting other forms of recreational access.” » Continue Reading.
New York State Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) charged a Saranac, Clinton County, man with numerous counts related to killing a moose in the town of Franklin, Franklin County, following a month-long DEC investigation.
On December 4, 2019, ECOs charged Zachary Vaughn, 26, with four misdemeanors: taking of a moose; possessing a loaded firearm in a vehicle; use of an artificial light in a vehicle while in possession of firearm; and hunting deer with the aid of an artificial light. » Continue Reading.
Each time I present on invasive pests, it begins with a slide of Chicken Little, a character who fomented mass hysteria by convincing other animals the sky was falling. It’s usually good for a chuckle. Inevitably I then proceed to unload a barrage of bar graphs, pie charts, alarming statistics, and photos of mayhem wrought by the featured pest. A final slide shows the position of the sky, with arrows in the direction of gravitational pull at 9.8 m/s/s, proof that the sky is indeed falling. For some reason, fewer people laugh at the end. Go figure.
Threats to forest health posed by invasive species are no joke. Yet I think we educators often come across like Chicken Little, squawking about yet another threat to trees. It would be hard to blame the average person for asking themselves, gosh – how many times can the sky fall, anyway? » Continue Reading.
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