The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
Ed Ketchledge, the man responsible for saving the alpine vegetation in the High Peaks, died on Wednesday at eighty-five. Ketchledge taught or touched the lives of many of the scientists working in the Adirondacks. He also authored the book Forests and Trees of the Adirondack High Peaks Region, which many hikers use to identify trees…
By Phil Brown
Last weekend I paddled with our publisher, Tom Woodman, on four ponds south of Floodwood Road. Tom wrote about our trip for the Explorer’s Adirondack Dispatches blog, so I won’t cover the same ground (or water, rather). I’m just taking the opportunity to post a photo of one of my favorite wildflowers, blue flag. I…
By Phil Brown
Protect the Adirondacks has hired Peter Borrelli, a longtime environmental activist, as its first president and chief executive officer. “I’ve known Peter for almost forty years, going back to when we both served together at the Sierra Club, and I have followed his career closely ever since,” said Chuck Clusen, chairman of the Protect board.…
By WINNIE YU It is day two of the Hamilton County Birding Festival, and my husband, Jeff Scherer, and I are riding with Joan Collins and Judith Harper in the Moose River Plains. The plains are notable for the large diversity of habitats, which include bogs, open plains, boreal forests, hardwoods, and mountaintops of spruce.…
By Phil Brown
David Gibson and Dan Plumley, both of whom resigned this month from Protect the Adirondacks, are thinking about forming a new environmental organization. “We’re talking a lot about the possibility. Nothing’s crystallized,” said Gibson, who once served as Protect’s executive director. Meanwhile, Charles Clusen, the chairman of the Protect board, said Protect expects to hire…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has two interesting proposals for the Moose River Plains. One should make local officials happy. The other should make environmentalists happy. The Moose River Plains is now classified as Wild Forest. DEC wants to reclassify twenty miles of dirt road as an “Intensive Use Area,” a designation usually reserved…
By Phil Brown
Under pressure from local officials, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced today that it will open the roads in the Moose River Plains. Earlier this month, DEC angered local officials when it said state budget cuts would keep it from opening the forty-mile system of dirt roads. Local towns rely on the Moose…
By Phil Brown
Over the past four years, the number of endangered Indiana bats in New York State has plummeted about 50 percent. And that’s the good news. The populations of other bat species in the state have fallen as much as 90 percent. State biologist Al Hicks told the Adirondack Park Agency on Thursday that three species—the…
By Phil Brown
Hamilton County’s director of economic development and tourism has written Governor David Paterson to protest the state’s plan to close to vehicles all the roads in the Moose River Plains Recreation Area. In his letter released today, William Osborne asserts that the closures “will have a devastating effect on the Hamilton County business community and…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is standing by its decision that the fire tower on Hurricane Mountain should be torn down to comply with the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. DEC’s recommendation apparently is at odds with the wishes of the Adirondack Park Agency board, whose members indicated last month that they’d like…