Letters - January/February 2010

A failed experiment

When the state decided in 1885 to set aside land for protection in the Adirondacks, it was to be an experiment to show it is possible to have sustainable communities while still preserving a great wilderness area. It becomes more and more evident that the experiment has failed.

I have been working for several years with NYCO Minerals, a mining operation in Willsboro. NYCO employs seventy-five to a hundred people. These are family-sustaining jobs that support our communities, businesses, and schools. NYCO wants to amend the state constitution so it can continue to mine deposits of the mineral that are adjacent to their current operations but under state land. If you remove land from the Forest Preserve it must be replaced, and NYCO is willing to do that. NYCO, state Senator Betty Little and I have been working with environmental groups to see if they could support such an amendment. Without this amendment, future operations at NYCO could be shortened by many years.

The response from Protect the Adirondacks was, “The employment issues and community of Willsboro economic issues were voiced as positive benefits of the proposal; however, they fail to sway the majority regarding the high threshold needed to amend Article XIV.” The other environmental groups in the Adirondacks are still trying to work through this issue.

People chose to come here because this is a beautiful and special place. Those of us who live here know that and don’t want anything to change; yet as time goes by, our presence is becoming meaningless. Our opinions don’t matter! When people first began discovering the Adirondacks, we carried their packs, cut their trees, built their homes, dug their ditches, labored in their mills, taught their children, healed their sick, and welcomed them like family. Most have become our friends and our neighbors, but those who came with their own agenda have stood judge and jury on what is acceptable for growth in our communities, what areas will remain accessible to the handicapped and aged, what kind of vehicles are allowed on trails, and even if we can keep our traditional hunting camps on state-owned land. Are we not part of the state? What about the great experiment?

I am very angry, but even more, I am very sad. The great experiment is a failure, and there is no balance. My family, friends and neighbors are being forced out of existence and few seem to care.

Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward, Willsboro

....................................

Name this lily

In the November/December Adirondack Explorer you have a beautiful picture by Mark Bowie captioned “Tiger Lilies on Hackensack Mountain.”
Those are actually wood lilies, not tiger lilies.

Dr. Stuart Delman, Chestertown

....................................

Make Tahawus tracks wilderness

In his article in the November/December issue of the Explorer about the prospect of a trail being constructed on the mining company NLI’s thirty-mile D&H rail spur to Tahawus, Alan Wechsler noted that if the rails are removed, the seventeen miles of so-called permanent easements and the thirteen miles of temporary easements on the Forest Preserve will be extinguished. Actually, the legal issues are much more extensive and serious, not to mention the fact that many people do not think it a good idea to have a trail that would be used by snowmobiles ending on the doorstep of the High Peaks Wilderness Area.

These right-of-way easements were taken by eminent domain by the federal government in 1941, solely for the purpose of hauling ore from Tahawus, over the strenuous objections of the state and the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, which took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The railroad spur was built in 1942 by the federal government and subsequently leased to National Lead (now NLI) by the federal government, which bought it at auction in 1989.

Because the sole purpose of the federal taking was to haul ore, other purposes for the rail spur, such as for a tourist train or for a trail are precluded. Further, active mining stopped in 1982, and the railroad was abandoned in 1989. The sole purpose of the rail spur has been fulfilled; ore will never be hauled again; and the easements on the Forest Preserve should be extinguished. The trail idea should be dropped, and the Forest Preserve should be restored to its pristine pre-WWII condition.

NLI also should be required to remove the huge amount of waste rock it dumped in the Hudson River under DEC permit, to get to its reserve ore deposits at Cheney Pond, and restore the river to a natural free-flowing stream.

Charles C. Morrison, Saratoga Springs
Morrison is former natural resources director
for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

....................................

More housing saves communities

Working homeowners in the Adirondacks are losing ground, and community life suffers as we go elsewhere. The recent APA farm-housing suit got me thinking: what if everyone whose principal residence is in the Adirondack Park was allowed to develop an extra residential unit on their property regardless of APA classification? A unit that couldn’t be subdivided and sold separately and that met all site-review, zoning and code requirements. Whether this unit provided rental income, farm help, or housing for family, it could add value for those who want to stay here, in communities with possibilities for the next generation.

Maybe family farms could make it, maybe empty barns and garages could be assets; children and grandparents could stay at home. Maybe more teachers, mechanics, environmentalists, nurses, artists, construction workers, guides, and shopkeepers could live where they work. Maybe schools and fire departments would stop shrinking.

I’d like to see this experiment called the Adirondack Park work.

I’d like my neighbors to remain as sustainers of community life.

Maybe it’s time to make this a real partnership.

Marcy Neville, Keene
Neville is a member of the Keene Town Board and the Housing Assistance Program of Essex County board.

....................................

Thanks to the Land Savers

I’d like to express our appreciation to the Smith and Kingsley families for their generous thoughtfulness in setting aside their parcel of land on Lake Placid (Land Savers, November/December 2009). Most people don’t have the ability to make significant donations to conservation in the Park. But we enjoy being in the woods thanks to contributions like theirs.

Vincent Tauro, Liverpool

....................................

There’s hope for beeches

In your article headlined “Alien bugs at our door” (November/December), the first paragraph says: “Since the 1960s, the beech-scale insect has devastated the region’s beech trees—so much so that scientists believe the species may not survive here.”

I don’t know any scientist working on beech-bark disease who thinks the species won’t persist here. After all these years the area covered by beech trees is the same as it was before, but the forest structure has changed drastically. What we have ended up with is a lot of small trees and very few large, old beeches.
New beeches continue to sprout from roots, and there is still seed regeneration as well. While many trees die quickly, some trees live a long time with a lot of disease and quite full canopies.

We don’t know the future, but beech-bark disease is quite different from some other disease systems in that the host species is hanging on quite well (at least as small trees) because of the beech’s incredible ability to root sprout. Only about 1 percent of trees may be truly resistant, but many more can live to a fair level of maturity before succumbing to the disease. We don’t have enough empirical data to really do the modeling into the future, but it doesn’t look like beeches will go away any time soon!

Celia Evans, Merrilsville, NY
Evans teaches ecology at Paul Smith’s College.