The Adirondack Park Agency has scheduled hearings for reclassifying as Wilderness 12,545 acres of state land in the Lows Lake region. The state Department of Environmental Conservation proposed the reclassification to appease environmentalists angered by DEC’s decision to allow floatplanes to continue landing on Lows Lake through 2011.
As noted in an earlier blog, the proposal is unusual in that it would classify the lakebed as well as the adjacent lands.
The Wilderness classification is the strictest of the APA’s seven zoning categories for state land. The main restriction of Wilderness Areas is that motorized use is prohibited. After 2011, no planes will be allowed to land on Lows Lake. Motorboats already are banned, except those used by owners of private inholdings.
The hearing schedule is as follows:
Monday, July 13
Wanakena Ranger School, 11 a.m.
Long Lake Town Hall, 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, July 20
DEC headquarters, Rm. PA 129B, 625 Broadway, Albany, 12 p.m.
[…] Lows Ridge is part of the Lows Lake Primitive Area, but the Adirondack Park Agency proposes to add it and a lot of the surrounding land to the Five Ponds Wilderness. Opponents of the land […]