See Also
“Empire State Greenway Rejected by Essex County” - PRFA News Brief, February 2006
Suspicious of more State-imposed land-use controls, the Essex
County Board of Supervisors decided against participating in
the vast Empire State Greenway stretching from the Niagara River
to Lake Champlain, which Essex County borders.
Carol LaGrasse to Testify on National Heritage Areas
Before U.S. Senate Committee on
March 30, 2004
The Senate Energy and Resources
Committee has invited Carol W. LaGrasse to testify at their Oversight
Hearing on National Heritage Areas on Tuesday, March 30. The
Hearing will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the main Energy and Resources
Committee Hearing Room, Dirksen 366. The Subcommittee on Forests
and Public Lands is the sponsor of the hearing.
“Brief Comments on Erie Canalway National Heritage
Corridor (Abbreviated Transcript)” - By Peter J. LaGrasse, Chairman, Stony Creek Board
of Assessors (PRFA, December 9, 2003)
Corridor proponents are concealing the extreme limitation
in the protection from liability for owners where trails are
located. The Heritage Corridor is a plan for a total change in
cultural orientation. Local people will not be able to afford
the taxes. If this scheme succeeds, there indigenous population
will not be able to continue to live in the area.
“National Park Service, Sen. Jeffords Push International
Champlain Heritage Corridor” (PRFA, November 2001)
Essential Books
& Publications
“Heritage Rivers—Elites
Only,” Positions
on Property, Vol.
4, No. 1 (PRFA 1998).
Publication
Order Form
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In-Depth Information
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 “HCF
stands against land pressures” - Opinion by Carol W.
LaGrasse (Reprinted from Register-Star, Hudson, N. Y., March
18, 2008)
The Hudson River Valley is the object of a number of state
and national Heritage Area preservation efforts that would limit
the economic future of this historic commercial corridor of New
York State. In the fact of the threat to close the Hudson Correctional
Facility for budgetary purposes, it is important to realize that
the important prison on the riverbank stands as a bulwark against
the preservationist pressures which the local communities increasingly
face.
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- “Why Was Olana
Jilted?” - By Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the
New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 11, No. 4 (PRFA,
Fall 2007)
During October 2007, the Office of International Affairs of
the National Park Service announced that Olana, the home of Hudson
River landscape artist Frederic Church, had been dropped from
the list of surviving applications for UNESCO World Heritage
Site designation. But the reason given at that late date, that
Church was not a world class artist, doesn’t jibe,
considering that it is common knowledge that Church, although
revered in the U.S., is not considered of world significance.
In reality, the Park Service backed off because of property rights
opposition.
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- “LaGrasse
Testifies on Proposed 600-Mile Historic Trail” - By
Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property Rights
Clearinghouse, Vol. 11, No. 4 (PRFA, Fall 2007)
This article, which should be read in addition to LaGrasse’s
full official testimony, describes the proposed National Park
Service 600-mile, nine-state Washington-Rochambeau National Historic
Trail. Revolutionary history and selections from advocates’
testimony are used to show the potential negative impact in private
property rights in New York related to historic landscape preservation.
A brief summary of LaGrasse’s full testimony is included.
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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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- “New
York Property Rights Directions”-Speech by Carol W.
LaGrasse, Cato Institute Conference-“Property Rights on
the March: Where from Here,” December 1, 2006, Washington,
D. C.
An overview of where property rights stand in New York, what
the directions are, and where the work for our cause has been
effective: focusing on the battle to keep land in private hands,
holding off extreme land-use regulation, the issue of conservation
easements, regional preservationist land-use battles, ubiquitous
zoning conflicts; and eminent domain.
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 “Entering
the Lake Champlain Watershed”
- By Susan Allen (PRFA, May 2005)
During late spring 2004, large highway signs suddenly appeared
that declared, “Entering Lake Champlain Watershed”
and “Entering Hudson River Watershed.”
The federally and state funded Lake Champlain Basin Program,
which already has precipitated the regulatory scenic byway and
many other programs, had spawned the Champlain Watershed Improvement
Coalition of New York, which had the DOT place the signs. All
of the signs disappeared late in the summer!
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- “Grants Have
Agendas” - By Carol W. LaGrasse,
PRFA November 15, 2004
Government grants put never-ending streams of money toward
preservationist objectives that diminish private property rights.
Prime examples are National Heritage Areas, regional planning,
trails, and government land acquisition.
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- “Additional
Comments on National Heritage Areas”
- Letter from Carol W. LaGrasse to Sen. Craig Thomas, U.S. Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, April 16, 2004
Reply to follow-up letter from Sen. Craig Thomas, April 5,
2004, requesting responses to four questions about property rights
issues related to National Heritage Areas.
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- “LaGrasse
Testifies Before U. S. Senate Against National Heritage Areas” - Reprinted from the New York Property Rights
Clearinghouse, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 2004)
At the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee oversight
hearing chaired by Sen. Craig Thomas on March 30, 2004, Carol
W. LaGrasse pointed out how this greenway program threatens private
property rights, after the General Accounting Office issued its
report, and the National Park Service and various Heritage Area
officials and experts testified in favor of the program.
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 “Could
It Be That the Hudson Valley Heritage Plan is Actually Anti-Heritage?” - By Nate Dickinson (PRFA, March 2, 2004)
A review of the “Hudson River Valley National
Heritage Area Management Plan.” The National Park
Service and its cadre of allied agencies and not-profit organizations
lay the groundworks for a four million acre kingdom of eleven
counties in the Hudson Valley, where resource protection and
land management policies are to be coordinated in a viable regional
plan.
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- “The
Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor - Worth Commenting” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted from the
New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Winter 2004)
The 524-mile long National Park Service Corridor is designed
to displace the current culture and population. It extends from
Buffalo to Albany, then to Lake Champlain, and includes the Cayuga-Seneca
and Oswego Canal regions, totaling 1,834 sq. mi. Eminent domain
is being used to acquire the Erie Canalway Trail. Development
rights for the entire canal were sold to one investor for only
$30,000. The Park Service does expensive public relations but
is short on real information.
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- “Saratoga
County Canalway Trail Shrouded in Secrecy—Trail Planned
along Champlain Canal Route through Saratoga and Washington Counties” By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, October 22, 2002)
The New York State
Canal Corporation, National Park Service, and the New York Parks
and Conservation are very quietly garnering support for an elaborately
planned proposal with federal funding to build an uninterrupted
26-mile trail along the active and abandoned Champlain Canal
route from Waterford through Saratoga County, to be followed
by another 22 miles through Washington County to Whitehall. The
abandoned and active sections of the canal pass through or adjacent
to private houses and backyards, businesses, farms, and other
private property, but the property owners are not being given
information.
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 “Oppose Another Federal Land Grab —Vote
‘No’ On the American Heritage Areas Partnership Program” - By Gerald B. Solomon, Member of Congress
(September 19, 1994)
The successful “Dear Colleague” letter
from Jerry Solomon urging Members of the House of Representatives
to vote against the American Heritage Area generic program. “Secretary
Babbitt has made it clear that funding for the heritage areas
will be conditioned on adoption of land use regulations acceptable
to the federal government.”
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