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Conservation Update

ADK, PROTECT Sue to Protect Canoe Route

ADK and Protect the Adirondacks! (PROTECT) filed a lawsuit Tuesday (Jan. 13) in state Supreme Court in Albany to force the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to adhere to state law and classify a state-owned wilderness canoe route in the heart of the Adirondacks.

The lawsuit was necessary because the illegal and arbitrary actions of APA and the state Department of Environmental Conservation undermined the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan and could seriously compromise future efforts to protect the Forest Preserve. In the words of David Gibson, executive director of PROTECT, “We are forced to seek redress in the courts because, despite the best efforts of many different parties, our state agencies failed to settle some important matters regarding implementation of the State Land Master Plan. We go to court for all state-owned waters in the Forest Preserve, not merely to settle the classification of Lows Lake.”

The Master Plan, which is part of state Executive Law, requires APA to classify all state-owned lands and waters in the Adirondack Park according to “their characteristics and ability to withstand use.” In September, the APA voted 6-4 to classify a portion of Lows Lake as Wilderness and a portion as Primitive. Both classifications prohibit motorized public uses. But Gov. David Paterson’s representatives on the APA board later changed their position and supported a resolution that left the lake unclassified.

The magnificent state-owned lakes of the Adirondacks are as much a part of the Forest Preserve as the trees, and the waters of the Adirondacks need legal protection under the constitution’s Forever Wild clause. The state bought Lows Lake a quarter century ago with the express intent of establishing a wilderness canoe route. Both APA and DEC have acknowledged that the waters and bed of Lows Lake are part of the Forest Preserve. Under the law, the waters and bed of a lake that is wholly owned by the state as part of the Forest Preserve must be classified.

In April, the APA voted to ban floatplane use on Lows Lake after 2011. The following month, the APA and the state Department of Environmental Conservation proposed classifying Lows Lake and other nearby water bodies as Wilderness and adding them to the Five Ponds Wilderness Area. In September, the APA commissioners voted 6-4 to classify part of the lake Wilderness and part Primitive and sent their recommendation to the governor. At the October APA meeting, the new representative from Empire State Development (ESD) asked for a revote because his predecessor had already left the agency when he voted for the classification in September. A revote was scheduled for November.

In November, Gov. Paterson’s representatives reversed their earlier support for classifying the lake and instead backed an amendment to remove the lake from a resolution that also classified adjacent land. The amendment and the resolution passed by a 7-4 vote.

The lawsuit also names DEC, one of the three state agencies with a seat on the APA board, because DEC violated a stipulation in the settlement of a 2008 lawsuit when it supported the proposal to remove Lows Lake from the classification resolution. ADK, the Sierra Club and the groups that now make up PROTECT sued DEC over its failure to abide by a legal commitment to ban floatplanes on Lows Lake by January 2008. The conservation groups discontinued the suit after DEC requested that APA initiate the process to classify the bed and water of Lows Lake as Wilderness.

Protect the Adirondacks!, ADK’s partner in the lawsuit, is a new nonprofit, grassroots membership organization dedicated to the protection and stewardship of the public and private lands of the Adirondack Park. PROTECT is a consolidation of the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks and the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.

A pdf version of the petition is available here.

ADK has also filed comments  in support of DEC’s regulation to ban floatplanes on Lows Lake after 2011.

Neil F. Woodworth
Executive Director

Allison D. Beals
Director of Government Relations and Conservation
Adirondack Mountain Club
301 Hamilton St.
Albany, NY 12210
(518) 449-3870
allisonbeals@gmail.com