ACR stuff in today's Enterprise

First, I have a story about Paul Maroun doing his advocacy thing for the resort in Malone. It wasn't much different from his typical speech, but it's probably the last time he'll have the opportunity to do it before the APA votes on the project.

Also, we have a letter to the editor from Philly Jones. He's blasting the environmental groups, as usual, but he makes a good point in one case.

Philly says that Adirondack Wild shouldn't be trying to delay the process further by moving to reopen the hearing. He said they had plenty of time to submit all the information they wanted to.

"They should have done more than a cursory one-day, if that, inspection by their 'expert' witness regarding environmental concerns on the property," Philly writes.

Now, I have a problem with him putting quotes around the word expert, but that's not the point.

The point is that it's true, there was plenty of opportunity for everyone who was a party to the hearing to submit any information they wanted. In many cases, rather than submit new information, they spent a lot of time hammering on the fact that the information currently available was lacking. That was a given, since the whole point of the hearing was to collect more information and examine the issues in more depth.

There were a few times where various environmental groups did submit more information, like the cursory study Adirondack Wild's biologist did of the amphibian population in the area, the Adirondack Council's presentation of Harry Dodson's renderings of the visual impact of the resort and design alternatives, and the information presented by Michaele Glennon and Heidi Kretser on other potential wildlife impacts.

And the APA staff that testified during the hearing said this information would be helpful and inform the decisions the commissioners have to make.

I'm sure getting those studies done was expensive and time consuming, but if you don't have enough time and money to get all the info you wanted before, then why would you think would this time?

One thing I disagree with Philly on, as I think I've said on here before is this, is when he says things like this:

"They expect and demand the ACR to torpedo its own project - ridiculous."

Is there really anything wrong with a developer being expected to provide all the facts about a project? Is trying to show that you're making it as environmentally friendly as possible while still a successful version of the business they envision torpedoing a project?

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