The Lake George Park Commission earlier this month suspended a pair of herbicide permit applications pending with state officials.
Dave Wick, executive director of the lake state agency charged with management of Lake George, said after state lawyers appealed a Warren County judge’s decision blocking a permit that would have allowed the herbicide to be used last year, he asked that applications seeking permission to use the herbicide this year be put on hold.
The Lake George Association (LGA) this week applauded the Lake George Park Commission for taking a critically-important step toward the protection of Lake George with its new wastewater regulations and mandatory septic system inspection and pump-out program. Read all the details on P. 13 of the New York State Register.
Bolton Landing, NY – The public is invited to attend a hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) field survey training on Saturday, March 11, from 10 am to noon, at Hearthstone Point Campground in Lake George.
Program leaders will give an overview of winter outing safety skills, while teaching how to identify hemlock trees, survey for hemlock woolly adelgid, and report findings using iMapInvasives.
Bolton Landing, NY – The Lake George Land Conservancy (LGLC) will open registration for its 11th annual Lake George Hike-A-Thon on Monday, March 6 at 8 a.m. This free event is open to the public, and all who register in the month of March can receive a free event t-shirt.
Information about the event, site details, sponsorship and volunteer opportunities, and registration can be found at lakegeorgehikeathon.org.
The Hike-A-Thon is a free, watershed-wide event that includes nearly 700 hikers, paddlers and volunteers in an organized morning of guided outdoor recreation. The simultaneous hikes and paddles culminate with aerial photography of each group by Carl Heilman, II, who will once again be flying in a helicopter piloted by Bruce Mowery of North Country HeliFlite.
Bolton Landing, NY – The Lake George Land Conservancy (LGLC) is pleased to report that for the second time they have exceeded the $300,000 Challenge for the Future of Lake George presented by Manning and Virginia Rowan Smith.
This fantastic feat was reached thanks to 35 individuals who pledged to provide support to the LGLC in their estate planning. As a result, the Smiths have donated $300,000 to the Virginia Rowan Smith Endowment Fund, which provides annual support for important land conservation projects in the watershed.
The Challenge was presented to encourage those who support the protection of Lake George to join LGLC’s Land and Water Society through a pledge of planned giving. The LGLC’s legacy giving program has grown to 154 members.
A new septic inspection program around Lake George could commence as early as the spring, with just over 500 properties becoming the first to submit to a new requirement that septic systems in critical areas in the lake basin get inspected every five years.
The Lake George Park Commission, which has been developing the regulatory proposal for around 18 months, cleared its latest process hurdle with a public hearing the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
The comments were largely supportive of new septic inspection requirements, but some raised concerns about newer, better maintained systems being treated the same as old, malfunctioning ones.
It was a busy season for law enforcement and first responders on Lake George – even as signs from boat launch stewards indicated a slight decline in boats entering the water.
The Lake George Park Commission marine patrol issued 187 tickets in 2022, up from 128 in 2021, including five boating while intoxicated tickets, two more than last year. The patrol team responded to 733 complaints, up from 635 in 2021, and issued 1,101 warnings, up from 1,009 the previous year.
The crews also responded to a wide array of incidents, including domestic disturbance calls at island campgrounds, numerous accidents of people jumping from rocks, an out-of-control mushrooms trip, reckless drone use, multiple drownings and a gun-toting man who lit a dock on fire with fireworks.
The water of Lake George is rated as drinking water quality, which is no small feat for a lake of this size and with such heavy usage. The water remains clean and clear for several reasons. We have no industry or commercial agriculture on the shores, and the many springs on the lake’s bottom constantly feed it with clean water. Lake George is also unique in that it has its own state regulatory body, the Lake George Park Commission (LGPC), created in 1988 to protect the lake and safeguard the people who use it.
We are getting to that time of year where you can more easily check hemlock trees for invasive woolly adelgids. The insects sprout white wool to keep them warm in the winter, which is easier to see than the black specks they tend to look like in the spring. Remember to flip the branches over to look.
It’s strange talking about aphids bundling up for the cold weather, though, when it has been such a warm start to November. Some of our local lilac bushes have budded, and my small vegetable garden rebounded with a few grape tomatoes–a tasty surprise, but unsettling. But back to the bugs.
On November 4, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced the Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Parkway in Lake George will remain open through Veterans Day with free access. The parkway will close for the 2022 season at 4 p.m. on Friday, November 11.
Please note: The shuttle to the summit of Prospect Mountain is not available at this time. Admission fees to access the highway are temporarily waived.
For more information about visiting the Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway Day Use Area, go to DEC’s website.
Photo at top courtesy of the NYS DEC.
LAKE GEORGE — Approximately 200 elected officials, municipal highway crew members, business owners, scientists and not-for-profit leaders gathered in Lake George and online on Thursday, Oct. 13, for the Lake George Association’s Seventh Annual Adirondack Champlain Regional Salt Summit. The day-long event provided presentations and demonstrations on keeping winter roads, driveways and parking areas safe while reducing the cost and environmental consequences of road salt use.
LAKE GEORGE — The Lake George Association has launched a new citizen science program called AlgaeWatch and is seeking volunteers to monitor their favorite areas of the Lake for excessive algae growth and, especially, harmful algal blooms (HABs). Interested volunteers can sign up for the program at lakegeorgeassociation.org/algaewatch and also watch a new LGA educational video on the dangers posed by HABs and what can be done to prevent them.
Those with the Lake George Arts Project are pleased to host a Quilting in the Age of the Pandemic Courthouse Gallery Exhibition which is open for viewing through Saturday, October 29. A closing reception is set to take place in the gallery on Saturday, October 29 from 4 to 6 p.m.
The MICA Quilt Raffle Group originated in 2015 at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), founded by Fiber Art Department faculty member Susie Brandt. Brandt organized a weekly gathering of students, staff, faculty, and alumni to work together on quilts that were eventually raffled to help fund student scholarships at the college. In 2017, their group expanded to include members of the African American Quilters of Baltimore.
Harmful algal blooms were first confirmed on Lake George in October 2020, suspected to have been spurred on by a warm, dry fall.
With Lake George residents and advocates keeping a careful eye on the lake, DEC scientist Lauren Townley (pictured here) updated the Lake George Park Commission on the state’s latest HABs action plan for Lake George, which was updated in August. She shared the update in Bolton at the Lake George Park Commission’s first in-person meeting since prior to the pandemic.
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APA failure to hold public hearings has consequences
Last April, Adirondack organizations wrote to the Adirondack Park Agency asking APA to rediscover their discretionary power to hold adjudicatory public hearings on particularly complex, controversial Adirondack land use projects. No response to our joint letter has been forthcoming from the APA. However, a rather resounding response has just come from a member of our state’s judicial branch.
Only one formal APA adjudicatory public hearing has been held in recent memory, and that was in 2011 and concerned the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake. Ever since, APA staff have refused to recommend that the board take any land use and development to public hearing. And no APA board has produced the required six votes to do so.
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