Lake Placid, NY — Classrooms and educators across the Adirondack region have received over $57,000 in grants to enhance the teaching and learning of foreign languages. The grants were awarded by the Adirondack Foreign Language Enhancement Fund (AFLEF) at Adirondack Foundation. The fund supports innovation in French and Spanish classrooms and elevates the status of language teachers in the teaching community.
Lewis, NY – Adirondack Harvest is seeking sponsors, vendors, volunteers and petting zoo animals for the 7th annual Adirondack Harvest Festival. The Festival is scheduled for Saturday, September 23, 2023 from 12 to 5 p.m. at the Essex County Fairgrounds. The event will follow the same format as past festivals, with a large farmers’ market, local food trucks, “Local Libations” tent, hands-on workshops, kids’ activities, draft horse and wagon rides, and more.
The theme of the hands-on workshops and demonstrations will be “Local Fiber and Wool” with experts leading sessions on natural dyes for yarn and fabric, sheep shearing, spinning, weaving, and more.
The Plattsburgh State Art Museum will host a mini symposium, “Creative Catalyst: Exploring Rockwell Kent’s Alaskan Adventure,” Thursday, April 6 and Friday, April 7, 2023. All related events are free and open to the public.
The mini symposium marks two days of engaging and invigorating activities in a celebration of inspiration and creativity. Discover the remarkable story of Rockwell Kent’s 1918 Alaskan adventure as you connect through art, storytelling, film screenings, and workshops – all while being inspired to pursue your true calling. Join us for this special occasion that honors the legacy of the Rockwell Kent Collection.
News of a reduction to planned lake trout stocking levels in Lake Champlain is another positive sign of the growing strength of the lake’s wild-reproducing populations.
Fisheries managers announced plans to halve the number of lake trout stocked into the lake this fall, cutting the number to 41,000.
University of Vermont fisheries biologist Ellen Marsden and researchers in her lab in recent years have documented evidence that about 10 years ago, lake trout first introduced decades earlier finally started to spawn fish that “recruited” out of the first year of life and into the juvenile stage. Those fish have now grown into reproductive maturity and are continuing to thrive.
“This isn’t just a flash in the pan,” Marsden said.
Newcomb, NY – The Adirondack Interpretive Center (AIC) has recently announced a lineup of events to kick off the Spring season including a series of free “mud season movies,” early migrant bird walks, and a one-day introduction to fly fishing workshop. The 2023 mud season movies will be shown every Saturday in April at 1:30 p.m. at the Adirondack Interpretive Center, Newcomb Campus. (More information on the mud season movies in the image above.) The film series is sponsored by the Adirondack Park Institute.
The following are only the most recent notices pertaining to public lands in the Adirondacks. Please check the Adirondack Backcountry webpages for a full list of notices, including seasonal road statuses, rock climbing closures, specific trail conditions, and other pertinent information
NEW THIS WEEK
High Peaks Wilderness:
PSC Center for Sustainability Partners with Campus Bookstore on Local Food Access.
By Ariah Mitchell, Casella Climate Resilience Fellow
On campus at PSC, there are few options to purchase farm fresh or local grocery products. The Packbasket Bookstore has acted as a sort of convenience store on campus for quite some time, selling prepackaged snacks and drinks. Since our campus is 12 miles from town and about 6 miles from the closest market (Brighton Mini-Mart) and not all students have cars, access to fresh and affordable food can be an issue. According to a survey designed by Kevin McCarthy’s Fall 2022 class, students, faculty, and staff would like to be able to purchase organic, local food in the Packbasket. Mary Haskell, our new Bookstore Manager, is planning on a rebrand to do a better job of meeting the needs of the community both on-campus and off. The Bookstore will be partnering with the Center for Sustainability to make these goals a reality.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today announced that effective Friday, March 31, Region 6 will be closing all gates to snowmobile trails and mud gates on seasonal access roads on Forest Preserve, State Forest, and Conservation Easement lands due to spring thaw and muddy conditions. DEC Region 6 is comprised of Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Herkimer, and Oneida counties.
Motor vehicle use during the spring mud season damages roads, resulting in road opening delays. DEC will reopen the roads once they are dry enough to safely handle motor vehicle traffic and necessary maintenance is completed.
Photo at top courtesy of the NYS DEC.
April showers bring May flowers, but that’s not all April brings. April 1 to September 30 marks the ozone forecast season in the Northeast. During this time, New Yorkers should pay extra attention to the daily Air Quality Index (AQI) forecast, as an air quality health advisory is more likely to occur during these months.
Ground-level ozone is air pollution formed by a chemical reaction between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of sunlight. Ozone levels tend to be higher on hot, sunny, windless days, making it much more prevalent in the summer. High levels of ozone make the air unhealthy to breathe and can cause several health problems.
April 1 is around the corner, which is when the state budget is due. One-house budget bills have been released, and it looks like both the state Assembly and Senate would like carve-outs in the Environmental Protection Fund for specific Adirondack and Catskill parks projects. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget had suggested Adirondack-specific allocations would still be in the proposed $400 million EPF, but the line items for them were deleted. Legislators want them back.
Of note, both budget proposals appropriate $10 million under the EPF’s State Land Stewardship funding for the Catskill and Adirondack forest preserves. Many groups were pleased with this, from the Adirondack Mountain Club, to the Adirondack Lakes Alliance, to local government officials.
The Assembly’s budget included a boost to the EPF, from Hochul’s proposed $400 million to $435 million. It boosted clean water infrastructure funds from $500 million to $600 million. The Assembly would like a carve-out of $25 million in water funds for addressing harmful algal blooms, something that was not in the executive budget proposal.
Diminution: I – BEARS, rev.
Author’s note: Spring is almost upon us and the bears will be coming out and eventually down to our villages and towns; will eventually have unhappy altercations with homeowners as food becomes scarce and they get hungrier. They will also get shot and killed — 16 last year alone by the DEC.
Town of Chesterfield
Essex County
Evidence Search and Recovery: On March 20 at 9:45 a.m., New York State Police (NYSP) requested Forest Ranger assistance in an evidence search connected to a homicide investigation at Ausable Chasm. When Rangers arrived, they were asked to recover the body of a homicide victim thrown more than 100 feet down the chasm. Rangers rappelled down, found the victim, packaged the body, and used a technical rope system to return the victim back above the cliff.
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“Winter” Recap: Banding more than 300 Evening Grosbeaks
We are having the tail end of the winter that didn’t happen here anyway. The folks out in the mountains of California and Nevada are looking at over 16 feet of snow in many places, with more coming this week with another atmospheric river coming ashore. Their reservoirs should be more than full when all this melts. Down south in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia fifteen tornadoes ripped through parts of these states, killing 26 and leaving hundreds homeless.
Rescuers continue to search for loved ones of residents of a Mississippi town destroyed by a tornado that was on the ground for over ninety miles. In Rolling Fork, a delta town of 2,000, hardly anyone escaped the storm without losing someone they knew or loved. More storms are going through that same area later this week, with more tornadoes and heavy rain forecast all the way to the east coast.
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