Another year for watchdog journalism
This past year, the Explorer expanded its full-time investigative reporting to bring readers coverage of the Adirondacks they cannot find anywhere else. We dug deeply into two issues of significant importance to the Adirondacks: A plan in the works to build a power line from Quebec, Canada to Queens, New York; and an accounting of the spending of the $1.7 billion borrowed in 1996 for New York State’s Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act.
Here are some of the big stories we will be keeping an eye on in 2023:
- Managing the park: We plan deeper watchdog reporting on the state agencies responsible for protecting and allowing development within the park.
- Climate change: We’ve added a climate reporter, who will look at how warmer temperatures are impacting the park’s plants and wildlife, our communities, our local farms, and our recreation-based economy through a lens of solutions.
- Housing: We will continue to follow ideas and solutions being applied throughout the park to the workforce-suppressing lack of housing.
- Dams: The Explorer will follow the much-needed upgrades to dams in the Adirondacks, including some of the park’s most iconic.
- Rail trail: We will follow the progress of the Adirondack Rail Trail. The first phase of this long-time project is expected to be completed this fall. We’ll track the trail’s impacts on the economy and infrastructure of surrounding communities.
- Broadband: We’ll look at what’s being done to close the gaps in essential internet and communications access throughout the park.
- Carrying capacity: The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan calls for decisions around land use in the Adirondacks to be based on science and data. The Explorer will look at how this data is being collected and how it will be used by the Adirondack Park Agency to decide on development projects.
- High Peaks use: The High Peaks Strategic Planning Advisory Group has issued its final report. From that, a pilot permit system at the Adirondack Mountain Reserve wrapped its second year. Which of the other recommendations have been implemented? We’ll explore.
- Road salt: The Adirondack Road Salt Task Force has finished a draft of its final report. Now it waits to be finalized. We’ll bring you the latest on this long-awaited plan.
- Paul Smith’s College merger with Fedcap: As Paul Smith’s College awaits approvals of a merger with Fedcap, a Manhattan-based job training enterprise, we’ll continue to report on what this will mean for students and communities who rely on the Adirondack Park’s only four-year college.
— Tracy Ormsbee
I wish they would look into not building an oversized blacktop parking area. Get the trail operating and see if parking for 300 cars is needed. Forever green is not building unnecessary parking lots
We won’t get young people without affordable housing. And you won’t get affordable housing without getting rid of the STR market – housing was not a problem before this took off. It’s made a joke of the zoning of communities. I live in a “Rural” zone with a house next door holding 8 people week after week from May-October – no reprieve.
One of the biggest concerns to the residents of the Park is the early closing of DEC campgrounds this year. Residents of the Park depend on the fall season to finish up the tourist season. DEC plans on closing 11 of the 14 campgrounds in Hamilton County on Labor Day instead of Columbus Day which is the traditional closing date. That shortens the camping season by almost 5 weeks. People love to come and camp in our beautiful Adirondacks in the Fall, it is the best time of year. Shortening the camping season by almost 5 weeks will have a serious effect on the local economy and tourists will be spending their money elsewhere.