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In-Depth Information
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 “Buried in the State
Budget: Over $50 Million to buy 75,000 Acres for ‘Forever
Wild’ Adirondack Forest Preserve” - Letter to Members
of the State Legislature, by Carol W. LaGrasse, President, Property
Rights Foundation of America, Inc., March 16, 2011
While the State Legislature fights about where to cut jobs
to meet a huge budget shortfall, hidden in the tentative budget
is $50 million to buy private Adirondack land from The Nature
Conservancy to block it from public access and kick out the hunting
camps: $40 million to acquire over 60,000 acres of prime timberland
formerly owned by Finch Pruyn Co. and relegate it to ‘forever
wild,’ never to be logged again, and over $10 million
is to acquire 15,000 acres in the area of Follensby Pond, with
the same fate.
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- “Black
Brook Wins First Round in Fight to Block Land Acquisition”
- by Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, April 30, 2008)
Acting Clinton County Supreme Court Justice Patrick R. McGill
ruled on April 21, 2008 that the State of New York could not
justify its motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Town
of Black Brook and Howard Aubin, personally, to assert the local
veto power of the State’s acquisition of 15,000 acres
of Finch Pruyn lands within the town. The veto power was established
by the Environmental Protection Fund act in 1993.
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- “Stop
Strangling the North Country” - by Carol W. LaGrasse
(PRFA, March 18, 2008)
The Governor should reject the privately negotiated land deal
between the DEC and The Nature Conservancy to acquire 57,699
acres of productive land that was formerly owned by Finch, Pruyn
and Co. of Glens Falls for the “forever wild”
Adirondack Forest Preserve and 73,627 acres of conservation easements,
the bulk of the rest of the Finch, Pruyn land. Adding these vast
acreages to the 3 million acres of Forest Preserve and nearly
700,000 acres of DEC conservation easements will further squeeze
the economy and future of the North Country
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- “Unbridled
Radical Preservation” - By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted
from New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 11,
No. 2, Spring 2007)
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, known
as DEC, has (with the State parks office) finalized its new Open
Space Conservation Plan, dated November 2006, but available only
during spring 2007. The plan reveals that the State currently
owns 4,327,000 acres in fee simple plus 731,000 acres in conservation
easements to save “open space,” or a
total of 5,058,ooo acres. All government “open space”
land ownership in New York, in both fee simple and conservation
easements, totals 5,486,500 acres. In 424 pages plus nine appendices,
the plan describes the means of government ownership and control
to preserve open space and the countless new goals to acquire
and control more land.
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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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- “Illegal,
Unjust, and Irresponsible” - by Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA,
January 17, 2006)
DEC 2005 Draft Open Space Plan fails to reveal full extent
and impact of its land acquisition plans, violates the principles
of environmental justice and good government.
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 “They’ve
Got a Little List” - An original poem by Susan Allen.
The poem was read at the DEC hearing for the Open Space Plan
at Ray Brook, New York on Nov. 14, 2001. Inspired by The Mikado,
with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan.
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