Posts Tagged ‘Adirondack Wild’

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Does Boreas Ponds Dam Belong In A Wilderness Area?

Boreas Ponds aerial - Carl HeilmanWhy do they call it Boreas Ponds? After all, if you look at an aerial photograph, such as the one at left, taken by Carl Heilman II, it’s just one water body. This fact is also evident from the 1999 USGS map below.

The reason is not mysterious. Like many Adirondack lakes, the water level of Boreas Ponds has been raised by a dam. As an 1895 map indicates (it’s shown farther below), Boreas Ponds used to be three ponds connected by narrow channels.

When the state acquires Boreas Ponds from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, it must decide whether the concrete dam should be retained.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, December 23, 2015

APA, DEC Proposals Would Alter Wilderness Protection

Adirondack Park Open-for-Business VignetteThe 2015 report Adirondack Park at a Crossroad: A Road Map for Action begins this way:

“We document recent permit decisions and management practices by the NYS Adirondack Park Agency (APA) and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) which we believe are inconsistent with the constitutional and statutory requirements designed to ensure long term protection of the Park’s integrity and which are irreconcilable with the agencies’ obligations as the public’s trustees of the Adirondack Park…We illustrate how this significant shift in priorities at APA and DEC…are part of a larger pattern of allowing increasingly destructive development to proceed with little or no environmental baseline data, only cursory environmental review, and little in the way of avoidance or mitigation of negative impacts.”

As the year ends, we see the pattern described in our report of favoring recreational use over the State Land Master Plan’s “paramount” purpose of natural resource and wilderness protection continuing. Several of the State Land Master Plan (SLMP) amendment alternatives sent by the APA in December to public hearing in January would, if selected as the preferred alternative, fundamentally alter wilderness protection policies in place since 1972. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Green Groups Differ On Rail-Trail Proposal

Adirondack Tourist Train (Susan Bibeau)Two environmental groups disagree on whether a state proposal to remove 34 miles of train tracks between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid complies with the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.

In a news release last week, the Adirondack Council praised the proposal, calling it “a good compromise” that protects natural resources and addresses the economic and cultural needs of the region.

Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve, however, contends that the proposal violates the State Land Master Plan. The proposal would amend the corridor’s unit management plan (UMP) from 1996. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Groups Seek Expansion Of High Peaks Wilderness

boreas pondsEight environmental groups are urging Governor Andrew Cuomo to dramatically expand the High Peaks Wilderness once the state purchases Boreas Ponds from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy.

At 203,526 acres, the High Peaks Wilderness already is by far the largest Wilderness Area in the Adirondack Park. Under the environmentalists’ proposal, it would grow to more than 280,000 acres, making it larger than Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado or Mount Rainer National Park in Washington.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Michale Glennon Wins Top Adirondack Wild Award

Michale at VIC posed - Julie - more on DVD

Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve presented awards to individuals and organizations making contributions to the conservation, stewardship and educational values of wild lands. The awards were presented during the organization’s Annual Members Meeting at the Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek, NY in early October. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 10, 2015

High Peaks Oil Trains: A Primer On The Issues

Iowa Pacific oil trainsThe Iowa-Pacific rail company took state officials and environmental activists by surprise in July when it unveiled a plan to store hundreds of drained oil-tanker cars on its tracks near Tahawus on the edge of the High Peaks Wilderness.

Ed Ellis, the president of Iowa Pacific, says revenue from storing the cars will help keep afloat its tourist train, the Saratoga & North Creek Railway, which has been losing money. Critics contend Iowa Pacific is creating a quasi-junkyard in the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, September 3, 2015

DEC: Biological Information ‘Not Applicable’

Picture1In its latest Recreational Management Plan for 19,000 acres near Rainbow Lake, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation appears disinterested in biological information, much less in taking actions protective of sensitive biological resources.

The Kushaqua Conservation Easement is 19,000 acres of managed private timberland, formerly International Paper Lands, now Lyme Timber lands, located in the Towns of Brighton and Franklin. The tract lies north of Rainbow Lake and Buck Pond Campground, west of Loon Lake, east of Meacham Lake, and much of the tract is surrounded by Forest Preserve in the form of the Debar Mountain Wild Forest. Kushaqua was placed under a conservation easement acquired by the State in 2004. » Continue Reading.


Monday, August 24, 2015

New Report: The Adirondack Park at a Crossroad

Crossroad ImageA new report by Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve concludes that “New York’s Adirondack Park faces serious threats due to the failure by State agencies in recent years to protect and preserve the Park’s wild forest character and natural resources. ”

The report, The Adirondack Park at a Crossroad: A Road Map for Action [pdf], argues that APA and DEC are failing to fulfill their legal obligations to protect and preserve the Adirondack Park.  The report outlines what the organization considers “a pattern of state agencies straying from their historical mission of science-based conservation and resource protection.”  » Continue Reading.


Monday, August 10, 2015

Dave Gibson: Snowmobile Connectors Are Disconnected

Boreas River and Rt. 28N where DEC proposes a new snowmobile bridgeThe contradictory, disconnected, segmented, illegal and impractical ways that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (with full cooperation from the Adirondack Park Agency so far and support from Governor Andrew Cuomo) is going about the business of planning and building community connector snowmobile routes in the Adirondack Park continues apace. Work planning for the just approved community connector between Newcomb and Minerva, for example, will prove very interesting indeed and will be challenged in every sense of that word. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Adk Park Institute To Fete Wilderness 50th Organizers

Wilderness 50thThe Adirondack Park Institute (API) will be holding a drawing for a 12-foot Hornbeck New Trick Canoe at its annual Awards Dinner and Gala, which will take place on Friday, September 18, 2015 at the Adirondack Hotel in Long Lake, NY.

This year’s Awards dinner will honor The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government and Adirondack WILD for their partnership in commemorating New York State’s role in inspiring the National Wilderness Preservation System Act of 1964. » Continue Reading.


Monday, May 4, 2015

Arbor Day Ed-Venture In Memory Of Brother Yusuf

DEC Forest Rangers demonstrate for the groupIn recognition of Arbor and Earth Days, volunteers from the Youth Ed-Venture and Nature Network in Albany recently joined forces with Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to plant several hundred trees near the Hudson River north of Lake Luzerne.

This stewardship project was supervised by NYS  DEC Forest Rangers Charles Kabrehl and Evan Donegan in coordination with DEC foresters in order to stabilize the environment, prevent soil erosion and improve the aesthetic appearance of a popular, heavily used recreation area of the Adirondack Forest Preserve. Potted and bare root trees were provided by the DEC Saratoga Tree Nursery directed by forester David Lee. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Adirondack-Abruzzo Park Exchange

Abruzzo-National-Park-ItalyThere is a fruitful global partnership for parks and protected areas among people all over the globe. I see this reflected, for example, in each issue of the international Journal of Wilderness (Chad P. Dawson, Editor).  For Americans who have given the world the gift of wilderness in law it sh

ould be inspiring to read about or witness. There is no reason to be cynical or hopeless. Look around the world to witness what our example (Yellowstone, 1872, Forever Wild, 1894, National Parks, 1916, National Wilderness Preservation, 1964, etc.) has wrought.  That is, in part, why we were motivated to  launch Adirondack Wild in 2010 – to take hope and inspiration from people who care deeply about their remaining wilderness, here or anywhere, and who are busy restoring it through every possible means. » Continue Reading.


Saturday, January 3, 2015

Gov. Mario Cuomo: His Final Adirondack Speech

Mario Cuomo at Silver Bay, 1994 1There will be many eulogies this week for Mario M. Cuomo. For me, the former Governor, like a certain white pine in our woods whose annual whorl of branches totes up the years I have lived here, is a measure of my time on this earth.

Thirty years ago last summer, Mario M. Cuomo gave that great address in San Francisco to the Democratic National Convention. I had just moved to upstate New York that year to be with Susan. As Governor, Mario Cuomo helped define the first eight years I worked for the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. » Continue Reading.


Monday, December 22, 2014

Adirondack Wild Makes SLMP Suggestions

APSLMP - LogoThe advocacy group Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve has issued a report calling for strengthening in policy and practice under the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (SLMP).

The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is currently considering amendments to the SLMP, the governing document for the classification and management of constitutionally protected Forest Preserve lands within the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.


Friday, October 17, 2014

Adirondack Wild’s 2014 Annual Meeting and Awards

Peter Tobiessen, aquatic biologist, was Adirondack Wild's guest speakerAquatic biologist Peter Tobiessen (shown at left) had found spiny water flea in his morning sample of Sacandaga Lake’s water, and by noon on October 10, 2014 he had several specimens under his microscope for us all to see. The occasion was the 4th annual meeting of Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve at Camp Fowler in Lake Pleasant.

This small aquatic “invader” from Europe has concerned lake ecologists since it first showed up among the zooplankton in southern Adirondack lakes around 2010. Spiny water flea, about ½ inch long, is related to native water flea, Daphnia, but it has a very long spine at the end of its body, reproduces rapidly and can dominate the large filter-feeder level of the lake’s food web at the expense of native species. Its long spine also gets tangled in fishing lines and can clog fishing rod guides. » Continue Reading.



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