Posts Tagged ‘carrying capacity’

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Carrying Capacity Study Needed For The Saranac Chain Of Lakes

Assessing the carrying capacity of specific areas of the public Forest Preserve, especially lakes and ponds, has been a requirement of the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan for decades. Despite the plain language of the Master Plan, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has failed to complete any such studies for major lakes and ponds in the Adirondack Park. The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) has never pushed the DEC to complete these analyses, nor undertaken any on its own. This Master Plan requirement has been openly flaunted by both agencies.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Deciphering a court decision

Sunset on Lower Saranac Lake

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.”

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Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Carrying capacity goes to court

Former DEC Commissioner Thomas Jorling, center in gray suit, and lawyers before a hearing at the Appelate Division of the state Supreme Courty's Third Department. Photo by Zachary Matson

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.

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