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. “Peter brings a unique set of skills in communications, advocacy, and management never applied before in the Adirondacks.” Protect was formed last year by the merger of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks and the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks. The Protect >>More
Gibson may form new group
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 a new staff director in late June. The person will be given the title of president. “This person lives in the Park, and he’s known the Adirondacks for a long time,” Clusen said. He said the person has “vast experience” in land-conservation issues and has >>More
Changes planned for Moose River Plains
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 for state campgrounds. The department does not intend to create a full-out campground, with showers, bathrooms, paved roads, and other modern amenities, but it expects to maintain up to 150 roadside campsites with fireplaces or fire rings, picnic tables, and outhouses. The Intensive Use classification will >>More
Moose River Plains roads to open
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 River Plains for tourism. Following is the full text of DEC’s news release: Thanks to a creative state-local partnership, the Moose River Plains Road — which provides access to one of the largest blocks of remote lands in the Adirondack Park — will be open >>More
County official protests to governor
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 a local economy already teetering on the brink.” He also contends that the state should not purchase any more land for the Adirondack Forest Preserve unless it can guarantee it can pay to maintain the land. “Why is the State of New York buying more >>More
DEC sticks by tower decision
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 the tower to stay. The APA commissioners directed the agency’s staff to explore the legal and fiscal ramifications of keeping the fire towers on both Hurricane and St. Regis mountains. The APA will discuss the towers again at next Thursday’s meeting. In keeping with the >>More
Officials angry over road closures
Hamilton County officials are livid over the state’s plan to close the Moose River Plains Recreation Area to motor vehicles, saying it will hurt the region’s economy, intensify political tensions, and harden stances against land acquisitions by the state. “It’s one of the worst ideas I’ve seen in recent times,” said Bill Farber, the chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors. Farber said the county plans to press Governor David Paterson, the state legislature, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to open the roads before Memorial Day weekend. “It’s going to be a fight like none we’ve seen since >>More
Moose River Plains closed to vehicles
Because of the state’s fiscal crisis, the Department of Environmental Conservation doesn’t plan to open the roads in the popular Moose River Plains Recreation Area this year. The large tract of state land, located between the hamlets of Inlet and Indian Lake, has forty miles of dirt roads and 140 primitive campsites. The sites are often used by car campers, anglers, birders, and hunters. DEC spokesman David Winchell said people will still be able to hike, bike, or ride horses on the roads, but the roads will remain gated to prevent access by motor vehicles. The roads are usually opened >>More
Showdown at Stillwater
Thompson family contends DEC is closing access to the isolated hamlet of Beaver River. By Alan Wechsler If you’re looking for the most isolated community in New York State, you might find it in Beaver River. The itsy-bitsy hamlet lies deep in the woods in the western Adirondacks, about twenty miles from the nearest community of any size. To get there, you drive up a dirt road until it ends at the western edge of Stillwater Reservoir and then take a boat or barge across open water. For generations, this has been the way most visitors and owners of 120 >>More
Domtar deal draws fire
The New York Post has raised questions about the state’s purchase of Lyon Mountain from the Nature Conservancy in late 2008 for $10 million. Four years earlier, the conservancy paid $6.3 million for the same twenty thousand acres. In an editorial on Wednesday, the Post called the rise in price “a staggering 57 percent profit . . . at a time when property values were collapsing.” At the request of Governor David Paterson, the state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has opened an investigation into the matter. Fred LeBrun will write about the controversy in the next issue of the Explorer. >>More
