A decision from the Appellate Division last week effectively rejected the Adirondack Park Agency’s long-standing interpretation of its wetlands regulations. I imagine we will be tracking the fallout from the decision for months to come.

That part of the ruling was a clear win for Thomas Jorling, a former DEC commissioner challenging a marina near his Lower Saranac Lake property. But another part of the decision concerning the state’s responsibility to study the carrying capacity of the lake was more of a mixed bag.

On the one hand, the decision sent a clear message to the state that it does in fact have a responsibility to study the lake’s ability to sustain various uses, including motorized boats, calling the state’s failure to do so “wholly unexplained and, indeed, inexplicable.”

» Continue Reading.

I went to Albany recently for an Appellate Division hearing in the case of Thomas Jorling vs. Adirondack Park Agency.

Jorling, a former Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner, is challenging the APA’s approval of a proposed marina expansion on Lower Saranac Lake. The hearing was the first chance for Claudia Braymer, Jorling’s attorney, to argue before judges that the state’s failure to study the capacity of Lower Saranac should invalidate the marina’s permit.

“The argument that they can just divorce the review of a private project from the review of the water resources of the Adirondack Park is wrong,” Braymer argued.

» Continue Reading.