By Ry Rivard
It’s not every day that a former head of a New York agency sues his old department.
But late last year, Thomas Jorling sued the Department of Environmental Conservation, which he led during much of Gov. Mario Cuomo’s administration.
Jorling wants to stop the expansion of a marina near his property on Lower Saranac Lake. He worries more boats will alter the lake and ruin his time there.
The lawsuit is now raising larger issues than his personal enjoyment. Steeped in the bureaucracy and details of environmental regulations, Jorling’s case is dredging up years of uncomfortable questions about whether the state lacks the know-how and will to protect the Adirondack Park.
Jorling alleges the state had a duty to study the lake and other lakes among 94,000 acres of land and water in the heart of the park before approving the marina expansion on Lower Saranac Lake. He argues the Adirondack Park Agency and the Department of Environmental Conservation have repeatedly and illegally failed to study how much development and tourism the park can handle.
A ruling in Jorling’s favor could cause significant changes to regulations inside the park. The questions about “overuse” by hikers in the popular High Peaks, he says, stem from a similar failure by the state to grapple with issues of how much human activity the Adirondacks can handle.
Jorling’s attorney, Claudia Braymer, said the state’s failure to study how humans interact with the environment is a larger problem that hasn’t been dealt with.
“Does that just go unresolved forever?” she said.
In the court filings, the state admits it hasn’t done a full study of Lower Saranac, but it argues it didn’t need to. The state spent years analyzing the project and said it knows the expanded marina won’t unduly affect the lake or the people already there, dismissing what it calls Jorling’s attempt to “preserve his view” at his “vacation property” from a marina that is a quarter mile away.
Jorling’s lawsuit was prompted by the APA’s decision to approve LS Marina LLC’s plans to expand two marina sites on Lower Saranac Lake. The company owns the marina in Crescent Bay, and a smaller one in Ampersand Bay, near Jorling’s property. The expansion would allow the marinas to upgrade aging facilities and allow them to hold a third more boats, bringing their total to 292 boats.
Buried in a maze of state planning documents for the park are calls for the state to do “carrying capacity” studies of each section of the park. In 2019, the APA approved a plan for the section of the park around Saranac Lake.
Carrying capacity is a land or water manager’s term for the place’s population threshold, beyond which there may be ecological or other damage.
Water news
Keep on top of environmental news with Ry’s weekly “Water Line” newsletter
That 2019 plan called for the state to do a comprehensive study of lakes — everything from pollution to how people enjoyed them — and then figure out how to balance a lake’s health with human enjoyment.
The larger department, DEC, is supposed to do the studies, and the smaller APA is supposed to take the studies into account when it makes decisions.
That pairing has rarely, if ever, happened, said Chad Dawson, a former member of the Adirondack Park Agency’s board.
Dawson, an academic who studies how humans use and abuse nature, resigned from the board late last year, unconvinced that his voice mattered.
Ten years ago, he co-authored a paper on how the state should reckon a lake’s carrying capacity. Yet, he and others say little has been done since then. He blames an understaffed DEC and a complicit APA that hasn’t forced the issue.
“Here is the heart of the matter: neither APA nor DEC want to engage the carrying capacity issue because they lack the political will power to address what will be the result — the need for regulations and restrictions on the amount and type of recreational boating facilities and use,” Dawson said in an email.
The studies are admittedly complicated. There are hundreds of lakes to review. And study results could lead to unpopular decisions, like limits on use of popular lakes.
Jorling’s lawsuit isn’t the first to focus on carrying capacity. In the absence of detailed studies, critics of the APA argue the agency has been making random or uninformed decisions.
“They just decide what they want to build and they justify it, or in some cases the second floor decides,” said John Caffry, an environmental attorney who has worked on cases against the state. The second floor of the Capitol is where the governor’s office is located in Albany.
A review of the few court cases on carrying capacity in the park don’t show a clear pattern.
In one 2009 decision involving Gore Mountain Ski Center, a judge found that the state had done a carrying capacity study even if it never used the words “carrying capacity” in its study, suggesting the term is open for interpretation.
In a 2011 case involving Lows Lake, another court found the state needed to consider the capacity of the lake, even if didn’t own all the land around it.
LS Marina did its own study of boat traffic, which the APA used. Jorling argues that it looked at boat traffic and didn’t consider “quiet, solitude, and preventing conflicts” among other people on the lake.
In a legal response, LS Marina argued Jorling is too far away to sue. His home is a quarter mile from the marina.
The company’s attorney, Matthew Norfolk, said some of the larger issues Jorling is trying to raise are between Jorling and the state.
“My client, LS Marina, LLC, submitted everything the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) required,” Norfolk said in an email. “The permit and variance applications were approved in accordance with the law existing at the time, which has not changed since the approvals.”
Essex County Judge Richard B. Meyer is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Friday, April 23.
Whether the carrying capacity issues comes to the fore in this week’s hearing, the issue won’t end there.
The Town of Santa Clara, which governs part of the land on Upper Saranac Lake, has paused approval of an LS Marina project there, citing the need for further study of the zoning laws around the lake.
The Upper Saranac Foundation has called for a carrying capacity study there, too, citing more intense use of the lake. Guy Middleton, the lake manager for the foundation, said different levels of government need to know what a lake can withstand before they approve new projects.
“Each should understand the carrying capacity from the jurisdiction that they rule over,” he said.
There’s at least one lake in the park whose managers have tried to figure these issues out: Lake George. On the largest and most trafficked lake in the Adirondacks, there’s an extra layer of protection beyond the DEC and APA.
There, the Lake George Park Commission has studied boat traffic with the goal of making sure the lake and its popular bays don’t become congested.
“That is kind of a guiding document,” said Dave Wick, the commission’s top staffer.
The Park Commission hasn’t approved a significant commercial marina expansion on Lake George in at least 30 years.
Seem like this line says it best: “Jorling argues that it looked at boat traffic and didn’t consider “quiet, solitude, and preventing conflicts” among other people on the lake.”
This is about one man telling everyone else that he owns the acres of water in front of his lake front property and doesn’t like the sound of motorized vessels, so he will express his will upon everyone else. It’s common knowledge that marina infrastructure in the Adirondacks is in need of investment. These businesses operate at best 6 months out of the year and capital improvements and simple maintenance can be challenging – there are not a lot of folks lining up to run an Adirondack marina. “Carrying capacity”, while understandable to a degree, can also be used as a guise to unfairly prohibit boating access and benefit a select few, typically those with power and wealth.
The overuse in this situation seems to be Mr. Jorling’s privilege.
What’s the difference between an environmentalist and a developer?
The environmentalist already has his cottage with a boat on a lake.
>> “The Town of Santa Clara, which governs part of the land on Upper Saranac Lake, has paused approval of an LS Marina project there, citing the need for further study of the zoning laws around the lake. The Upper Saranac Foundation has called for a carrying capacity study there, too, citing more intense use of the lake. Guy Middleton, the lake manager for the foundation, said different levels of government need to know what a lake can withstand before they approve new projects. ‘Each should understand the carrying capacity from the jurisdiction that they rule over,” he said.'”
Why don’t you do your due diligence as a reporter? Town of Santa Clara’s paid councilman Dave Perry is married to Town of Santa Clara Board of Assessment Lynne Perry, an Upper Saranac Lake Association (USLA) Director. USLA has stated their opposition to the marina project. Didn’t stop Dave Perry from voting on the moratorium though or grants going to his wife’s foundation (she is a director of the Upper Saranac Foundation).
Guy Middleton, lake manager quoted in your article, is employed by the Upper Saranac Foundation, of which USLA’s and Town of Santa Clara’s Lynne Perry is a director. USF is the foundation with direct ties to USLA (most of the same directors, for one). The lake manager also happens to be an ad hoc member of the Town of Santa Clara planning board. You should state this when writing your article.
>> From Foil Request by the Marina: “Enclosed is a copy of an email chain initiated on August 18, 2020, by someone using the email address of Mr. William Curran and Mrs. Patricia Curran, Lower Saranac Lake residents (hereinafter referred to as the “Curran email”). The Curran email opposed LS Marina, LLC’s Lower Saranac Lake marina project and warned that “the same developer” is coming to Upper Saranac Lake with the purchase of Hickok’s Marina (It is true that Mr. Michael Damp is a member of LS Marina, LLC and USL Marina.) The Curran email suggests that a “mega-marina” is planned for Upper Saranac Lake. The Curran email was sent to Mrs. Lynne Perry, a member of the Town of Santa Clara Board of Assessment Review and the Upper Saranac Lake Association. Additionally, Mr. Tom Phillips, upon information and belief, a member of the Upper Saranac Lake Association or Upper Saranac Lake Foundation or both, also emailed Mrs. Perry about my client and Hickok’s Marina by forwarding the Curran email. Included as recipients of this email to Mrs. Perry were Upper Saranac Lake Foundation and Upper Saranac Lake Association members Messrs. Gregory Bebernitz and Stephen Maikowski. As the email chain demonstrates, the Curran email states that USL Marina was intending to change Hickok’s Marina to model the larger marina that was proposed on Lower Saranac Lake by LS Marina, LLC. This representation is false. Nonetheless, it had a rippling effect, instilling fear in Town officials and some Town residents that a big bad developer was coming to town to create a behemoth marina that would adversely impact Upper Saranac Lake and the Town of Santa Clara.”
Town didn’t waste time getting that moratorium passed soon after. I’m thinking septic system program is next.
Not in my backyard….LOL……too many elitists!
I am am elitist, too, with family property on a popular Adirondack lake. It saddens me to see the lake more degraded year by year. It scares me to be kayaking while pontoon boat renters race past within a few feet of my boat. It scares me to see these rental boats full of people drinking and cavorting all day with no place to pee or shit except the lake water we drink. It bothers my heart to see the trash floating in the bays and the beer cans on the bottom. It is unfortunate that the boat wakes and lack of boater politeness discourage me from sailing every weekend in the summer. Tom Jorling is right. There IS a point at which our resources are over-stressed,over developed, and over-used. It is the State’s job to monitor use and protect these delicate resources that belong to EVERYONE so everyone can enjoy them…but NOT all at once! Properly fund our agencies and let them do their jobs.
ok then I’m for that……but let’s also start removing these “camps” on our wild lakes through Condemnation and Escheat..lets make them truly wild as intended..lets return our land for public use…..we can start with your camp and Mr. Jorlings….I’m sure both of you would be fine with that correct?….how about all these camps on the chain lakes in old forge?…how many “camps” use motorboats compared to the current proposal?…I’m very curious about this…….I can site many others….I don’t care if you have a pump back system or not!….time to pay the piper!!!……..too much lip service and “woke” individuals pointing fingers at others and not enough accountability….walk the walk if you’re a true environmentalist…like I said…not in my backyard right?
It has become almost impossible to fish on many lakes because there are nonstop motor boats racing all over and often way less than 50 feet away, beer guzzing tourists, beer cans and bottles tossed all over. try taking a canoe across saranac and see how unsafe it has become with huge boats drag racing by you.
The lovely morning, afternoon, evening roar of boats, the loons cant be heard.
personally i think there needs to be a limit on motor size to 10hp on saranac, noise level limits. all lakes less than a mile~total ban on gas boats. no noise pollution, gas/oil scum or fumes on lake. make it back to forever wild.
“Here is the heart of the matter: neither APA nor DEC want to engage the carrying capacity issue because they lack the political will power to address what will be the result — the need for regulations and restrictions on the amount and type of recreational boating facilities and use,” Dawson said in an email.
Change the last part of the sentence from boating to hiking and you will see a strong similarity. Commissioner Seggos – are you listening – or even caring??