Opposed to Limiting Access to Adirondack Park - Sen. Elizabeth O’C Little Letter to Carol
W. LaGrasse, June 5, 2006
“Sacandaga Lake property owner Faults Adirondack
Life Article” — Letter to
the Editor by Guy Poulin, March 2005
Access permit holders maintain the shoreline, pay income to
the Hudson River - Black River Regulating District, and pay premium
local property taxes. The April Adirondack Life article
attacking the permit holders had many important errors.
“Bulletin - Hearings for Comprehensive Adirondack
Snowmobile Plan” - Property Rights
Foundation of America. January 2004
Environmentalists long to close down snowmobiling. Sportsmen
and women, and all who believe in preserving the rural economy
should stand together. Access for snowmobilers helps to keep
the Forest Preserve open to all. Full article contains hearing
schedule across New York State beginning February 9 in Guilderland,
ending March 11 in Utica.
“C.A.N.Y.
Speech”
- By Ted E. Galusha, Region 5 Director, Conservation Alliance
of New York (CANY)
October 25, 2004
All New York organizations that are working toward freedom
from the extreme environmentalists should unite for our common
goals.
Letter
from Robert K. Davies, Director,
DEC Division of Lands and Forests, to Adirondack Explorer,
January 13, 2004.
“[S]nowmobiles are an allowable use in non-wilderness
areas of the Adirondack Forest Preserve…
[T]he dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric used by Mr. Van Valkenburgh
in his article is
counterproductive…Such cavalier mention of booby-trapping
snowmobile trails should be strongly renounced by everyone who
wishes for a civil public process.”
“The Adirondack Conservation Council is Sponsoring
a ‘Sportsman’s Rally’ and Fund Raiser”
Chicken barbecue at the Schroon Lake Fish
& Game Club, August 16, 2003 in support of reopening the
roads and waters of state lands.
See Also
Additional Helpful
Organizations
New York State
Off-Highway Recreational Vehicle Association, Inc.
address
Conservation Alliance of New York
(C.A.N.Y.)
Mike Zagata, President
address
website
Additional Resources
“Oppose
DEC ATV Plan!”
- by Don Sage, Adirondack Council Life Member, April 28, 2005
This DEC plan to block ATV’s from the Adirondacks
is based on lies. ATV riding has been formally allowed for decades.
Hikers are the most destructive users in the forest preserve.
Since 1986, over $6 million has been taken from ATV fees, but
there is nowhere to ride on state-owned land. DEC illegally closed
300 town roads in the forest preserve. These and 1,000 miles
of trails should be reopened with an interconnecting trail system
for all types of recreation.
“Conserving Open Space in New
York State - 2001: Draft State Open Space conservation Plan &
Generic Environmental Impact Statement-Oct. 2001”- New York
State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Contact person Francis Sheehan, DEC (518) 402-9417
View Open Space Plan at DEC web site: www.dec.state.ny.us
Frank Dunstan, Deputy Commissioner
625 Broadway, 5th floor
Albany, NY 12233-4250
Essential Books
& Publications
Conserving Open Space
in New York State-1997—promulgated by New York State Department
of Environmental Conservation.
(This is the latest revision of the Open Space Conservation Plan.)
The Property
Owner’s Experience-New
York’s Arbitrary and Excessive Environmental Regulation
of Private Land and Resources: Observations and Recommendations
for Reform - by
Carol W. LaGrasse (Property Rights Foundation of America
1998)
Publication
Order Form
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In-Depth Information
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 “DEC’s
Insidious Disregard for the People—Comments on DEC Draft
Wilcox Lake Wild Forest UMP”- By Carol W. LaGrasse,
President, Property Rights Foundation of America, March 2, 2007
DEC’s insidious disregard for the people is exemplified
by its treatment of Stony Creek and environs. The proposed Draft
Unit Management Plan for Wilcox Lake Wild Forest should be discarded.
The plan should be re-drawn under new assumptions, with the local
culture, economy, history, and the community included as salient
factors in a plan that respects the local people.
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- “Disabled Apartheid-DEC’s
Betrayal and Discrimination” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
Hearing Statement on DEC Lake George Wild Forest UMP, Queensbury
Town Hall, December 13, 2006.
DEC has betrayed the visionary effort of the disabled to open
up access to the Forest Preserve to people with disabilities
and people who are not athletic, by virtually closing down the
popular family recreation area on the Hudson River in Warrensburg,
which was established on land acquired from Niagara Mohawk, while
keeping open the most limited facilities exclusively for the
disabled.
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 “Land Acquired
- But Wait, Access Closed” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted
from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, PRFA, Summer
2006)
New York State’s announcements when acquiring
vast tracts of private land for the Forest Preserve promise more
access for the public, but over decades, more recently over a
very short time, the campsites and access roads are being closed
and the land is being cut off from hunters and other recreational
users that do not fit the mold approved by extreme environmentalists.
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- “Our Hike on
the Threatened Road to Whitehouse-A Photo Story, April 11, 2006”
- by Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, June 2006)
In order to enlarge the Silver Lake Wilderness, the State
Department of Environmental Conservation proposes to deliberately
destroy the West River Road, a town highway leading to the historic
site of Whitehouse on the West Branch of the Sacandaga River
in Wells, N.Y. Two fine steel suspension footbridges will be
deliberately allowed to deteriorate, locally cherished old stone
chimneys at the ghost town will be lost, and large, active campsites
enjoyed since at least 1962, when the State acquired the land,
will be deliberately destroyed. Access to a nineteenth century
cemetery will be cut off.
- “The
Cemetery at Whitehouse” - Photo Story by Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, June 2006)
The DEC’s radical eradication of highways closes
down access to cherished cemeteries, so that descendants and
local people who would like to visit, pay their respects, and
maintain the graveyards are stymied.
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 “Organizing
Successfully Against the Sacandaga Reservoir Regulating District”-By
Guy Poulin, Speech to the Ninth Annual National Conference
on Private Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 22,
2005)
Guy Poulin, a resident of Northville in Saratoga County, rallied
the shoreline owners on the Great Sacandaga Lake when the Hudson
River Black River Regulating District Commission obscurely announced
that the access permit fees would go sky high. His researched
the law controlling the fees, exposed the new scheme, which was
illegal, and aroused the property owners to action.
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Photo Gallery |
- Our walk to a small graveyard along an old Indian Lake
town road barricaded by New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) to enlarge the Adirondack Forest Preserve
wilderness shocked us with the realization that DEC is eradicating
roads, trails, and history.
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- “Essex County
Judge Saves Old Road Through Forest Preserve” - By Carol
W. LaGrasse, PRFA, April 27, 2005
Overturning the conviction of James McCulley for driving his
snowmobile on Old Mountain Road in the Adirondack Forest Preserve
in the North Elba, Judge Andrew Halloran ruled that the road,
established by the Legislature in 1810, could not be closed by
the Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulations.
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- “Group
Campaigns to Save Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower” - By
Carol W. LaGrasse PRFA, April 21, 2005
Loyalty to the 80-year old local landmark in Essex County
is fueling a battle led by Elizabethtown resident Gretna Longware
against the DEC’s proposed reclassification of the
area to “wilderness,” apparently at the
behest of influential environmentalists.
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- “Comments
on the DEC Draft Comprehensive Adirondack Snowmobile Plan”
- By Peter J. LaGrasse, Captain, Stony Creek Emergency Squad,
February 9, 2004.
All trails should be built for pickup truck access so that
snowmobile access would double as fire and emergency access.
Snowmobile access can also be pickup truck access for the disabled
and senior citizens.
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- “Landowner
Access to Great Sacandaga Lake is Squeezed”
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted from NY Property Rights
Clearinghouse, Property Rights Foundation of America, Fall
2003)
Conflicts raged over the Hudson River - Black River Regulating
District. The District tried to raise access permit fees over
300%. Access permit holder John Barber’s Hunt Lake
Holding Company sued to keep his lake access location, which
the District changed without notice.
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 “Statement - Wilcox Lake Wild Forest”
- By Peter J. LaGrasse, Captain, Stony Creek Emergency Squad,
& Chairman, Stony Creek Board of Assessors, DEC Meeting,
Thurman Town Hall, March 8, 2002
Harrisburg Road should be cleared through beyond Moosewood
Club and Baker’s Clearing to Wells, other roads cleared,
and a network of roads created for pickup trucks, which are what
people drive to go fishing, ATVs for recreation, emergency use
vehicles, and ambulances.
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- “Statement
- Wilcox Lake Wild Forest” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, President,
Property of America, DEC Meeting, Thurman Town Hall, March 8,
2002
Swaths of open area should be cut as fire breaks. Ancient
highways should be opened and trails widened for fire protection
vehicles. Waite Road and other old roads should be opened to
access State land. The State should reverse its anti-ATV policy.
Cemetery access should be respected. The State’s
environmental review should include the cultural and economic
impacts, not just biological aspects.
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- “DEC
Official Describes Implementation of ADA Consent Decree”
- Carol W. LaGrasse, Property Rights Foundation
of America, October 14, 2001
At the monthly meeting of the Adirondack Park Agency on October
11, DEC official Carole Fraser reported on the steps being taken
in the Adirondack Park to implement the consent decree that the
State reached in July after three years of negotiations with
Ted Galusha and the two other handicapped co-plaintiffs to obtain
access to the State’s wilderness lands under the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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- “Roads and
Trails Open to Motor Vehicle use By People With Mobility Impairment
Disabilities” - New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation, August 29, 2001
This 16-page chart lists and gives the basic access information
to 165 roads and trails into State-owned land throughout New
York that are now open to motor vehicle use by people with “mobility
impairment disabilities.” The roads and trails are
located from Suffolk County to St. Lawrence County. The official
chart represents an important step in the practical implementation
of the 2001 court settlement won in the Galusha lawsuit for handicapped
access to State-owned land. Additional accessible roads and trails
are being opened and created to enter wildlands, which were the
subject of the lawsuit. The applicable disabilities include limitations
on sight as well as what are popularly understood to be limitations
on mobility. Consult DEC for more details, such as the permit
requirements.
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- “Consent Decree
- Civil Action No. 908-CV-1117 (LEK-RWS) - Theodore E. Galusha,
Tenna Willard, and William Searles, Plaintiffs, v. New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation, et al., Defendants,
and Adirondack Council, et al., Intervenor-Defendant”
- Hon. Lawrence E. Kahn, United States District Court - Northern
District of New York. (Posted in full)
In addition to the 22 pages of the narrative terms of the
victorious settlement won by the three handicapped plaintiffs,
exhibits A through E list “Motorized
Access by Permit for Persons with Disabilities, to be Proposed
and Supported Through the UMP Process”; “Roads
and Trails Open to Motor Vehicle use by Persons with Mobility
Impairment Disabilities” (with the capital costs needed
to open these); “Accessibility
Projects Related to Existing Wild Forest Facilities and Opportunities”
(with capital costs totaling $871,000); “Accessibility
Projects to be Undertaken with Respect to Locations Identified
in Exhibit A, Upon Completion of the UMP [Unit Management Plan]
Process for the Wild Forest Units in which They are Located,
and for Accessibility Projects for roads that are Currently Open
to Motor Vehicle Traffic” (capital costs totaling $585,000);
and Additional Capital
Projects (capital costs totaling $1,752,000). Appendix F and G
conceptually describe improvement projects for disability access.
Exhibit H lists “Injunctive
Roads to Remain Open Subject to Final approval in the UMP Process.”
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- “DEC settles
in access for disabled lawsuit”-Reprinted by permission
from the Hamilton County News, July 10, 2001
The State of New York has caved in to three years of civil rights
litigation brought by disabled local residents in federal court.
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will give
the disabled real access to the State Forest Preserve lands in
the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains-including access to motor
vehicle roads exclusively used by the State and the expenditure
of nearly $4.8 million to make parking areas, restrooms, fishing
access sites, boat launches, campsites, picnic areas, equestrian
mounting platforms and offices accessible to the disabled. This
article describes the settlement and its implications for Hamilton
County.
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- “Governor
Announces Acquisition of over 26,000 acres of International Paper
Company land in Adirondacks” - Property Rights Foundation
of America Bulletin, October 6, 2001
In early October, DEC circulated Governor Pataki’s
announcement that the State and The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
have agreed to preserve 26,562 acres of land in the Adirondacks
primarily in Hamilton County, that TNC recently acquired from
International Paper Company (IP) for $10.5 million. The land
deal appears to be a mix of fee simple and conservation easements,
modeled after the Champion International acquisition.
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