Adirondack White Lake Association, Protect the Adirondacks lose appeal against APA
By Gwendolyn Craig
Environmental groups seeking judicial help to press the Adirondack Park Agency to hold hearings had a setback in an appeals court in Oneida County last week.
Hearings are the only way the agency, which oversees public and private development in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, can deny a permit. Groups have repeatedly demanded hearings on controversial projects, but the APA has eschewed them for more than a decade.
One attempt is underway before appellate judges in Albany, and another before appellate judges in Oneida County has faltered.
The State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Judicial Department in Utica ruled that the APA did not have to hold a public hearing before approving a new granite mine in the western part of the park.
The March 22 ruling upholds a lower court decision and ends the appeal process for the Adirondack White Lake Association and Protect the Adirondacks, the organizations who brought the petition.
“APA is satisfied with the decision,” said Keith McKeever, director of communications for the APA.
“We’re obviously disappointed in the fact that the court upheld the agency’s decision not to hold a public adjudicatory hearing in the face of over 3,000 public comments in opposition to this project,” said Chris Amato, conservation director and counsel for Protect.
Related reading: Court questions Adirondack Park Agency’s permit hearing standards in Lake George herbicide fight.
At issue: Hearings
The APA issued a permit in January 2022 to Red Rock Quarry Associates to mine granite in the town of Forestport near White Lake. The mine was last used in the 1930s.
Area residents expressed concerns about noise, dust, water-quality impacts and traffic from the quarry.
Protect the Adirondacks and others want the APA to hold an adjudicatory hearing presided by an administrative law judge that must be held before the APA board can deny a permit.
“It’s pretty remarkable that this agency seems to feel that no matter how big a project is, or how much there may be public concern and opposition, they’re just going to keep issuing permits without having had hearings, which are contemplated as an integral part of the process by the APA Act,” Amato said.
Protect and the Adirondack White Lake Association filed a lawsuit with the help of the Pace Environmental Law Clinic, which argued the agency should have held a public hearing before issuing the mining permit. The State Supreme Court in Oneida County, however, upheld the APA’s permit in a September 2022 decision, resulting in the appeal.
The groups argued that the agency failed to apply its own criteria for holding a hearing. The groups also said the agency’s presentation of the permit was “one-sided,” included “significant flaws” in the quarry’s noise and water quality analysis and ignored the public’s opposition.
The justices in the Appellate Division, however, said “the record supports the APA’s determination that there were no ‘substantive and significant’ issues with respect to whether the project would have an ‘undue adverse impact on the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic, recreational or open space resources’ of the Adirondack Park. We thus conclude that the APA did not act in an arbitrary or capricious manner in declining to conduct a public hearing before issuing the permit.”
Similar issues playing out in court
A similar lawsuit is playing out in Albany, brought by the Lake George Association. The organization is challenging the APA’s issuance of an herbicide permit to the Lake George Park Commission for the treatment of invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. The association argued that the APA should have held an adjudicatory hearing.
Top photo: White Lake, in the town of Forestport, as seen on June 3, 2021. Area residents rallied against a proposed pink granite quarry there. Explorer file photo by Megan Plete Postol
Opportunity for Public Comment
Written statements and comments on the application are encouraged, and any statements and comments may be filed prior to the hearing, but no later than the deadline for written comments, which is September 17, 2021. Electronic submission must be sent to: Comment.WhiteLakeGranite2021@dec.ny.gov while hard copies must be submitted to the attention of Zachary Goodale, Environmental Analyst, NYSDEC Rm 1404, 207 Genesee Street, Utica, NY 13501.
The story here is not that the environmental groups lost, but mostly that the APA was correct and they won the case. The other case will probably come out the same way since there are no significant issues there with a product that has been used for years and is safer for that application. These case are just costing the state unnecessary legal bills, money that could be spent on other things – like Ranger’s salaries.