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Press Release

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Contact:

Neil Woodworth, (518) 669-0128 or
Paul Ertelt, (518) 449-3870

     

Master Plan Assures Future Generations Will Enjoy Allegany State Park

SALAMANCA, N.Y. -- The Allegany State Park Master Plan signed today by Parks Commissioner Carol Ash will help ensure that one of the Northeast’s great natural treasures will be protected for future generations to enjoy. The Master Plan designates nearly 85 percent of the park as Park Preservation Areas, which means these areas of the park must be maintained in a near-wilderness state.

“Allegany State Park is vital to thousands of Adirondack Mountain Club members in the western part of the state, who use this beautiful park extensively for hiking, cross-country skiing and other outdoor activities,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). “We are pleased that Parks has accepted our recommendation to apply Park Preservation Area designations to Allegany, which will protect this natural jewel from future exploitation and development.”

At 65,000 acres, Allegany is the largest park in the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) system and attracts about 1.5 million visitors a year.
Allegany boasts spectacular scenic beauty, vast stretches of old-growth forests and a wide variety of flora and fauna. But the park is also vulnerable to private-sector oil and natural gas exploration because the state does not own the subsurface mineral rights in some parts of the park.

After extensive legal, historical and natural history research, ADK concluded that Park Preservation Area designation was the appropriate tool to protect Allegany State Park, and we included that recommendation in our July 2009 testimony on the draft Master Plan. In that testimony we noted that Article 20 of the Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Law allows for increased protection for “state parks, parkways, historic sites and recreational facilities that, although the entire facility does not qualify as a park preserve, nonetheless possess outstanding ecological values, including assemblages of flora and fauna that are unique or rare in the state.” Allegany’s flora and fauna are unique to the state and the United States, and the park’s rich soils allow for an exceptionally diverse ecosystem that would be irreplaceable if compromised.
The Park Preservation Area designation for Allegany State Park will help prevent the kind of destructive drilling practices, clear-cutting and extensive road construction that can be seen just across the border in Allegheny National Forest.

Ash signed the plan this morning at the Allegany State Park administration building in Salamanca. The plan went into effect immediately upon signing.

The Adirondack Mountain Club, founded in 1922, is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to protecting the New York State Forest Preserve, state parks and other wild lands and waters through conservation and advocacy, environmental education and responsible recreation. ADK has 28,000 members and 25 chapters, including chapters in the Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Binghamton and Syracuse areas.