By Gwendolyn Craig
Members of the Adirondack White Lake Association told the Adirondack Park Agency board in January that they didn’t “plan on rolling over and playing dead” after the board issued a granite mining permit in northern Oneida County. Now, the association and Protect the Adirondacks are suing the agency and the quarry owner.
The complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Oneida County questions the agency’s more than decade-long drought on holding adjudicatory hearings on projects. Those are hearings that have judicial oversight and are the only way the APA can reject a project.
It also questions APA’s review of the project and whether staff should have required more studies on water-quality, environment, noise and engineering. Members of the lake association also said legal questions remain over the access of Stone Quarry Road, which leads to the granite mine.
“We got here because we felt we weren’t listened to,” said Louanne Cossa, president of the lake association. “We were labeled as confused and misinformed.”
Cossa, who is a seasonal resident on White Lake, has spent her summers there since 1957 when she was 4 years old. She remembered the rise of the APA and its mission to protect the park. Now, she said, it seems like any project can get through its doors.
“It’s not doing its job,” she said.
Keith McKeever, spokesman for the APA, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Thomas Sunderlin Jr., owner of the quarry and the business Red Rock Quarry Associates, could not be reached for comment on Thursday. His engineer, David Shank of Strategic Mining Solutions, said on Thursday that he did not know about the litigation.
The quarry project
The APA conducted a rare two-day meeting in January to review Sunderlin’s quarry proposal. The agency had received more than 1,000 comments, most against the mining operation. The project is on 56.5 acres, with about 9 acres planned for mining.
The area was last mined in the 1930s, its granite used for the Proctor Memorial in Utica and the Bailey Fountain in Brooklyn, among other structures. Sunderlin’s application suggested his business would employ three to five people, with an overall payroll of $170,000 to $360,000.
In 2000, a similar mining proposal came before the APA. It didn’t pass the agency’s muster and now local residents wonder why the studies the board requested then were not requested now. APA staff said in January that the proposals were different.
Devan Korn, an APA environmental program specialist, said Red Rock Quarry Associates will not drill below the water table, something the last permit was proposing.
Ultimately the APA board modified the permit to reduce the hours for crushing activities, and then unanimously approved it.
The Forestport Planning Board has yet to sign off on the site plan. It is slated to meet on April 13.
At minimum, Cossa said, the town should wait on its approvals until the lawsuit is settled.
A hearing is scheduled for April 27 in Oneida County Supreme Court.
Concerns
Residents worry that the spring-fed lake and their local wells could be harmed by the mining operation. They worry about dust, noise and truck traffic.
Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, said mining during the height of tourist season will affect residents. Many of the studies submitted as part of the application were inadequate, he said.
Protect and the lake association are represented by the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic. In the March 15 complaint, Attorney Tom Ommen said the APA was legally mandated to hold an adjudicatory hearing and called for the permit to be vacated.
Ommen lists eight factors that can lead the APA to hold such a hearing, several of which he believed were relevant to the quarry permit. For example, the size and complexity of a project, the degree of public interest and the presence of significant issues are reasons for an adjudicatory hearing.
Korn and Chris Cooper, the APA’s counsel, did not provide the eight criteria for hearings to the APA board in January, the complaint notes. The lawsuit also says that APA board members“seemed confused” as evidenced by Chairman John Ernst’s questions. “There is no question that the confusion the Board Members expressed stemmed from the APA’s habit of refusing to hold a single adjudicatory public hearing in over a decade,” the complaint says.
Bauer pointed to how in its first 40 years the APA scheduled more than 150 projects for such hearings.
Also included in court records are affidavits from neighbors to the quarry, including Cossa, Steven Turczyn, Devan Cornish and Regina Balzano. Cornish and Balzano are also members of Protect. Cornish and his family use a camp next door to the mining project and have been there since 1981.
In his affidavit, Cornish said his grandmother, Shirley Cornish, plans to pass the camp to her family. As the sole beneficiary, Devan Cornish said he hopes to convey it to his two children, too. But he’s worried about its future should the mining project start, and seeks answers.
I think this is dereliction of duty by the APA and the suit is valid. The quarry has not produced any granite since the 1930s. Everyone I know who has remodeled their kitchen has added granite countertops for decades. So if this had been a good business proposition it would have been pursued much more vigorously by some commercial entity. It was proposed once and turned down by the APA. This will add 3 jobs to our area – heavy equipment operators. So dubious economic benefit and possible environmental damage which is what the APA should have examined more vigorously. Now it will have to explain it’s decision in a law court.
The cessation of adjuratory hearings had to have been a clear decision made within the APA.
Who issued the directive to stop holding these hearings, and to whom at the APA was the directive directed.
Decisions like this do not happen out of the blue.
Records exist…
I just put the popcorn in the microwave…
This lawsuit is necessary, as the APA needs to be reminded of their important duties and mission of protecting public and private lands. Thank you AWLA for leading this charge for all of us who care about the Adirondack Park.
How does the APA not listen to 1000 people against the project? The new chief of the APA would have a different view if it was near his summer lodge. If the APA cannot stop this project we should abolish the APA.
Thank you for allowing resident voices to be heard. Mr. Korn’s quote shows that he is the one who is “confused and misinformed.” Neither the 2000 nor the 2021 application establishes the depth of the water table; a two-year study has been directed to do so. How can he state (repeat the applicant’s claim) that the 2000 application called for excavation below the water table when he doesn’t know the water level in the first place? A simple reading of the 2000 application shows a proposed initial excavation down to 1465 ft above sea level (the surface at the mine is 1505 ft). The current application calls for excavation to 1445 ft, or 20 feet deeper. This is just one example of the APA’s lack of due diligence. The application should never have been considered “complete” in the first place with all the important data that remains missing or in dispute. It certainly should not have been approved without an adjudicatory hearing to determine actual facts
Hopefully the town wins and even more serious issue of clear APA failure to comply with core requirements of it’s mission, it should be manditory that every project is clearly open and that it has to have community forum’s, conversation, meetings and be above all, serve the community and preserve the enviroment we all live in, regardless of what the project is or how rich, affluent they are…stop allowing people to come into the adirondacks and throw money into projects that offend the communty and the very nature of forever wild. Shame on the APA failure and ongoing corruption. may this legal case break open the shady shenanigans of the APA.
I actually see privileged people who don’t know the community or state they visit year after year, waltz in as if they live in town year round and with 0 idea of the concept “Rust Belt” because of the limited jobs in the area. Upstate NY is suffering a mass exodus that, without new business or individuals moving in that will counterbalance the overwhelming amount of businesses that are closing, there won’t be an Upstate NY. All these tourist and summer folk act like they speak for the entire community. I hear the exact same debate about Bartons Mines near North Creek NY from the same tourist and vacationers. They live in natural abominations, cities ruin nature far faster than mining on 9 acres out of 6.4 million acres. Controlled fires and mining happen in every culture and throughout all human history. Your are deeply confusing your entitled privilege to have a second home in nature and your poor visual asthmatics in those 9 miles of privately owned land don’t appeal to your physical sight. But locals that live here want jobs and want to fight their shrinking populations and stop jobs from becoming scarce. Jobs that you can retire from and make a living on, which are rare all over Upstate NY compared to the cities you folk come from. Really consider putting people out of work because you think moving rocks is deforestation. Scientifically, your only argument is it isn’t pretty looking and you don’t like it and because they rejected you one time, you’ll keep fighting just to get your way. Go back to your cities and make them forever wild and I wonder if any of you would have the jobs you did to retire snd move elsewhere to Flux privilege on lower middle class families, atop your mighty towers. I don’t like out of towers making rules in towns they live for 2 weeks out of the year, but I don’t vote to remove them. Consider tolerance if mining isn’t destroying nature
It’s too bad, Spencer, that this mine will only employ about 3 people but the mine will affect thousands of people. Hardly a job creator. And all of the profits and products will leave the community. Many more jobs will be created from tourism.
Yo Spencer…
… you sure benefit from those seasonal folks paying taxes to help plow the roads and fill the potholes, and keep schools open, and…
I agree with some of your points on the hypocrisy of “put of towner’s”…but come on you sound foolish when defending a modern mining operation by arguing that “all cultures throughout history have mined”..a little disingenuous (or naive?) to compare the scrambling in the dirt our ancestors did for 199,900 years to a 21st century mining operation with heavy industrial equipment!
Regarding the above comments:
I believe we can all appreciate the need for good paying jobs in upstate NY. This is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the lack of regard for the impact this mine may have on our spring-fed lake and quality of life. We wanted answers to our questions as any property owner would when confronted with this type of project. We asked for scientific tests that would insure our community would not be adversely affected by this 25 year mine covering 26.5 acres of forested land, directly over our aquifer, near our lake outlet, less than 500 feet from 27 properties and less than 1,000 feet from the lake. In addition, other property owners and the public access the road where the Mine will be located. In fact, the applicant disregarded their rights!
The very few highly specialized jobs (from outside the community) to be gained (2-3) need to be balanced against the impact the mine will have on the local tourist economy and businesses that rely on these tourists to survive. Some 30-50 tourists a day will not be visiting the area daily this summer with the closure of White Lake Lodges and the half-dozen or more jobs it provided before it closed down this winter. How many people will want to have lunch on the deck of White Lake Inn as a loud, polluting tractor-trailer passes by on average of one every 16-20 minutes during the work day. If you live within an earshot of route 28 you will be hearing them too. Oh, and by the way, the owner of the mine does not live in Forestport. He’s an outsider!
The White Lake Community encompasses a diverse population — we are not “Out of Towners” – some of us live, work, pay taxes and vote, others have paid taxes for generations and live on the lake for six months per year (not 2 weeks!), others live in the community year round. Even those who only live there two weeks a year pay twelve months a year worth of taxes. One cannot characterize this as the “privileged few”. The Town of Forestport benefits from the White Lake Community – we provide a substantial tax base, many jobs are created from the 350+ properties. Mines are important – as with the Hansen mine in Forestport, but it is not located next to a spring-fed lake, property owners do not border the mine and most importantly it’s not within the Adirondack Park.
The APA should be protecting the lake and the surrounding environment from the quarry! The noise, pollution and contamination of our pristine lake will undoubtably occur when work starts. If the APA is unable and unwilling to defend the environment, then residents of this area must take further action to stop this disaster. The members of the APA should be disgraced they are allowing this to happen.
You forge an impressive argument that is also reasonable (and not to high-brow sounding) enough to actually sway someone dug in on the other side…except for the glaring “not in my backyard” overtone at one point 🙂
Let’s not have mob rule dictate the lives of the few.
Ironic, there are worries for the future of a local campground being posted here while projected new campgrounds in NYS are being accused of the same concerns stated here in these posts.
The complainers against glamping are almost as hilarious as the complaining here.
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/melville-residents-protest-plans-for-glamping-tents-near-their-homes/#x