Lake Pleasant, NY – The Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District’s 44th annual Lynn Galusha Memorial Conservation Field Day sparked students’ enthusiasm to learn about their environment on September 21. The District hosts the event annually on their Adirondack EcoTrail, and kids hike to six stations where they learn about exciting conservation topics from the natural resource experts.
It’s time to get out there and clean up Adirondack area towns for the upcoming tourist season. This year, Community Pride Day will occur on Wednesday, May 3. Residents throughout the area will take to the streets with gloves and garbage bags in hand to rid lawns and roadways of detritus left over from fall and winter. All volunteers participating will receive a free shirt to wear with pride while they clean up the streets. The back of these shirts lists all 126 sponsors of this year’s Community Pride Day.
Community Pride Day 2023 Shirt Design Contest – Deadline 2/17/23 Want to see your design be a part of this year’s Community Pride Day? Your challenge is to create a design/logo that illustrates what community pride means to you. One lucky winner will have their design be the logo for this year’s Community Pride Day, which will take place on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. *Community Pride
Day is a day when communities around us all take a moment to clean up our streets and get ready for summer.
The first day of winter was very nice, but the next few days right through (and past) Christmas Day were wild in many parts of the country. The worst being right in our backyard in Buffalo where the snow is still falling and the wind [is] still blowing off Lake Erie. [It has been] reported that 55 people have died so far [as of December 26] as a result of the storm, many found dead in their snow-trapped cars and some [were found] out on the streets frozen to death.
The quick change in temperature from in the forties down to below zero in just a few hours and winds up to (and over) 70 MPH off the lake brought the snowfall of over five feet in some places again, and drifts of over 16 feet. Many people didn’t heed the warnings and they had to get out and do that last minute Christmas shopping, which could have been their last trip. We missed most of that here in the North Country, but just north of us in the Tug Hill area they had over four feet of snow, and it is still falling there as of this writing [December 26.]
SPECULATOR — A solid foundation is vital to a building. It is the base that allows floors, walls and roof to stand true and square.
When a foundation falters, the building soon falters too. That is the dilemma facing Lake Pleasant Museum, and the reason for a fund drive to pay for a new foundation.
The Adirondack Park Agency will hold its monthly meeting at its headquarters in Ray Brook on Thursday, September 12th and Friday September 13th, 2019. Both sessions will convene at 9 am.
The meeting will include consideration of an amendment to a timber harvesting project in Westport, a review of public comments on the replacement of utility poles, consideration of amendments to the Town of Chester Local Land Use plan, a presentation on the final Sentinel Range Wilderness Unit Management Plan, rules for constructing and siting primitive campsites and more. » Continue Reading.
The Sacandaga River valley has been used as a transportation and communication corridor since before Europeans arrived. It was a native trail, a military road, and a proposed canal and railroad route. Today it’s home to Route 30. The river is a provider of power and recreation, and a powerful force of nature.
Just after the Civil War, a N.Y. Canal Board report (known as the McElroy Report) noted the damage along the Hudson River caused from annual flooding and suggested reservoirs upstream for flood relief and water power. Proposals were made at that time to dam many of the tributaries of the Upper Hudson, including the Sacandaga, but the New York State Legislature took no action.
In 1874 Farrand N. Benedict and Verplanck Colvin issued the Adirondack Storage Report, detailing areas where storage or containment dams could be constructed to minimizing Hudson River flooding in the spring and retain water for late summer and early fall release and use when it was needed in the communities downriver. » Continue Reading.
The folks at Lake Pleasant, New York, certainly lived up to the town’s name on our recent visit. The occasion was an event this past Thursday evening, July 13, at the Lake Pleasant Public Library, where I was invited to present the program, “Tracking Robert Garrow, the Adirondack Serial Killer,” as part of the Library Reading Series. The library hosted us in partnership with the Adirondack Center for Writing, as part of a series sponsored by the Lake Placid Education Foundation, which provided funding that can be very important to presenters, particularly when travel and other expenses are involved. » Continue Reading.
My coworkers and I completed the installation of green infrastructure demonstration projects at the Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District office in Lake Pleasant including a rain garden, a bioswale and two rain barrels.
Local homeowners and municipalities have the opportunity to see the benefits of stormwater pollution prevention practices. The projects are designed to protect and preserve water quality as essential aspects of public health, a vibrant local economy and a flourishing ecosystem. » Continue Reading.
The Herkimer County Legislature has named Friday “French Louie Day” in honor of the noted French-Canadian Adirondacker Louis Seymour. A celebration is planned for Saturday in the Town of Inlet.
Friday marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Seymour, who made the wilderness between Inlet and Lake Pleasant his home from the 1860s until his death in Newton’s Corners (now Speculator) on February 27, 1915. Seymour’s name became legend after the 1952 biography Adirondack French Louie: Life in the North Woods by Utica author Harvey Dunham, which portrayed him as a man of hard work, determination and humor. » Continue Reading.
Aquatic 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.
Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve gathers for its 4th Annual Meeting of members, friends and supporters on Friday, October 10th (10:30 am – 4 pm) at Camp Fowler on Sacandaga Lake in Lake Pleasant.
Adirondack Wild has helped lead the statewide commemoration of the the 50th Anniversary of the National Wilderness Preservation System Act of 1964 and the fact that New York’s “forever wild” Constitution inspired the Act’s principal author and chief lobbyist, Howard Zahniser. » Continue Reading.
Since 2003, I have been battling purple loosestrife, an invasive plant that may be gorgeous but overruns wetlands, and outcompetes native plants that wildlife and waterfowl depend on for food, shelter, and nesting grounds. After 11 years of manual management, populations along the Route 8 and Route 30 corridors in Hamilton County have decreased. This is good news for native plants that fill in areas where invasive purple loosestrife used to grow.
This August I focused on rights-of-way along Routes 8 and 30 in the Town of Lake Pleasant and the Village of Speculator. I snipped each flower with garden clippers before plants went to seed for reproduction. All plant material was bagged and allowed to liquefy in the sun before being delivered to a transfer station.
It is exciting to fight invasive plants for over a decade and see promising results like this. Manual management is tedious, but persistent efforts have helped stop the spread of purple loosestrife and remove these invaders from the environment. » Continue Reading.
Spiny waterflea, a tiny invasive species that can have a significant impact on the aquatic food chain of waterways, is spreading in the Adirondack Park.
First discovered in the region in Great Sacandaga Lake in 2008, spiny waterflea is also in Stewarts Bridge Reservoir, Peck Lake, Sacandaga Lake, Lake George, and the Glens Falls Feeder Canal. Recent surveys detected populations in Hamilton County in Lake Pleasant, which adjoins Sacandaga Lake, and nearby Piseco Lake. » Continue Reading.
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Reminder to respect, give space to wildlife & their young
With the smoke from the fires in Canada being the big news, people were asking about the danger of fires here in the Adirondacks. Some forgot about all the water and where it runs when you get five to eight inches at a time. I don’t know how many floods I went through in the Moose River Area during my 33 years as a Forest Ranger there (and many times since I retired 24 years ago.) I know we lost the Governor Brook tube seven times…and still no bridge yet, they just fill in the hole.
» Continue Reading.