APA meeting: Improvements to campgrounds on Fourth Lake, Lincoln Pond move forward despite cost concerns

Agency’s online project dashboard tracks proposed headquarters move; state land management plans discussed

By Tim Rowland

Two Adirondack campgrounds with badly aging facilities would receive major overhauls under a proposal presented to the Adirondack Park Agency at its August meeting in Ray Brook. In other matters, APA Executive Director Barbara Rice announced the release of an online Project Dashboard, through which interested people can keep tabs on the agency’s proposed move from its aging headquarters in Ray Brook into a former industrial building in Saranac Lake.

The dashboard includes environmental reports for the site, which find no reason, in terms of contamination, that the project can’t move forward.

The agency also continued to workshop its update of the State Use Master Plan and briefly discussed tracts of state land that have lingered since the APA’s inception without the benefit of written Unit Management Plans that are the foundation for trail building and other recreational pursuits. Board member Jerry Delaney said without these UMPs, people will not come, and the value of public lands to the communities is lost.

As for the campgrounds, Oliver Miller, environmental program specialist at the Department of Environmental Conservation, said the Luzerne Public Campground and the Lincoln Pond Campground located between Elizabethtown and Moriah are both in need of improvements. In the case  of Lincoln Pond, he said, it appears the bath facilities at both haven’t been upgraded in more than half a century.

After raising some eyebrows at the costs, the APA moved both projects on to a public comment period. Among the pricier improvements were new bathhouses at Luzerne at a cost of $650,000 each, and road-paving costs that can approach $750,000 a mile.

Board member Art Lussi wondered if a rougher surface might be cheaper, while also being safer by discouraging speeding.

The Luzerne campground, on 51-acre Fourth Lake in the Town of Lake Luzerne in Warren County, was purchased by the state in 1966, and includes 173 campsites, boat rentals and day-use grills and picnic tables. 

The campground hosts about 25,000 campers and day-users a year. It has equestrian facilities with a system of horse trails and connects to the Berry Patch trail system. Bicyclists also use the campground’s six miles of roads, which Miller said are in poor shape. The proposed improvements include:

— Replacing five restrooms and including showers at a cost of $3.25 million.

— Repaving the campground’s crumbling roads, costing $4 million.

— Rebuilding equestrian barns and improving trails and signage, $100,000.

— Rehabilitate water system, $895,000.

— Bury 2.73 miles of power lines, $725,000.

— Install utility sinks in restrooms, $30,000.

— Plant trees and shrubs, $20,000.

— Decommission boat launch northeast of day-use area, $15,000.

— Replace volleyball court with playground and pavilion, $125,000.

— Reconstruct an on-site bridge, $425,000.

— Restore campsites, $40,000.

Lincoln Pond has 35 campsites on an ample 572-acre lake popular for boating and fishing. It opened in 1971, and features seven secluded primitive campsites known as “The Kingdom.” It attracts about 11,000 users a year. Proposed improvements include:

— A new bathhouse at a cost of $2 million.

— Add a recycling building for better trash management, $250,000.

— Pave main parking lot and a mile of access road, $750,000.

— Construct a new bathroom building, $400,000.

— Replace water system, $650,000.

— Rehabilitate wastewater system, $500,000.

— Replace trailer dump station, $350,000.

— Plant trees and shrubs to rehabilitate the shoreline, $25,000.

— Construct a boat washing station to help prevent spread of invasives, $50,000.

— Restore campsites, $15,000.

The public can comment on these projects online by scrolling to the bottom of the DEC campground storymaps — Luzerne Public Campground and Lincoln Pond Campground — and taking the provided survey.

Photo at top: Lincoln Pond from the overlook. Photo by Tim Rowland