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Earlier this year, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation held a public comment and meeting period regarding the Draft Disadvantaged Communities Criteria (DAC). This criteria, which is being overseen by the Climate Justice Working Group, will help the state “identify disadvantaged communities to ensure that frontline and otherwise underserved communities benefit from the state’s historic transition to cleaner, greener sources of energy, reduced pollution and cleaner air, and economic opportunities.”
While the Adirondack Council supports the overall effort of the DAC criteria, the focus is on urban and suburban areas of New York. The Council feels the criteria should be updated to include the challenges faced by the rural communities of New York, in particular those in the Adirondack Park. Our comments on the DAC criteria are below, as written by Adirondack Council Director of Conservation Jackie Bowen and Clarence Petty Climate and Conservation Intern Andrea Shipton.
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Lame, Tired, And Wrong Blame-The-Park Editorializing Persists
In the Adirondacks, I thought we had moved beyond weak economic and social analysis that blames the Park for all of the problems and challenges facing Adirondack communities. I thought that many in the Adirondacks had looked at long-term national rural population and economic trends and learned that the issues facing Adirondack communities are the same issues facing Rural America – and that the first decades of the 21st Century in the U.S. have proved extremely difficult and challenging times for Rural America.
But I was wrong. A recent editorial in Sun Community News went in big with a blame-the-Park rant. Its editorial started out lamenting the closure of an Emergency Room at Adirondack Health in Lake Placid but then went all in on blaming the Park. Now, I live in a community in Hamilton County where we’re at least an hour’s ambulance drive from the nearest Emergency Room, so I get the concerns about the ER closure.
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