A pending decision by the Adirondack Park Agency this Friday will determine whether or not it finds its own law worthy of its unique authority or, conversely, whether it would prefer to haphazardly hand over decisions on the State Land Master Plan to its sister entity, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). For our state's "forever wild" legacy, the decision by the Park Agency on the fate of Lows Lake and floatplane use is of the utmost importance.

Lows Lake lies within the Bog River Complex unit management area designated as "primitive," but essentially all of Lows Lake is surrounded by the Five Ponds Wilderness Area. Any trip into Lows via the Bog River or a simple look at the Park's land use plan map demonstrates that Lows Lake and the Five Ponds Wilderness are inextricably linked - part and parcel of the same, remotely wild whole. A place apart where nature reigns, eagles fish, loons call, and young and old alike can paddle through one of the Adirondack region's best canoe or kayak pathways.

This was why, back in 1989 when significant state lands were added to the "complex," the DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency established that Lows Lake "is an integral part of the Lows Lake Bog River Oswegatchie wilderness canoe route where preservation of the wild character of this canoe route without motorboat or airplane usage is the primary goal for this primitive area." Designated "primitive" areas, under the State Land Master Plan, are recognized as areas where wilderness conditions predominate and where, eventually, wilderness designation is preferred as conditions permit - the state's ultimate goal being to improve conditions expeditiously as possible for protecting the "forever wild" character of these lands and water and their true wilderness solitude, natural conditions and native ecological integrity in so doing.

It is also why the DEC commissioner under Republican Governor George Pataki and his regional director, Stu Buchanan, in 2003 voted fully in the affirmative in a nearly unanimous decision (the vote was nine in favor, one opposed) to schedule appropriate elimination of floatplanes on Lows Lake by 2008, consistent with the State Land Master Plan, when it came time to adopt the final unit plan for the Bog River area. DEC's leadership substantiated a prudent conservation decision with facts of the relatively smaller size of Lows Lake and the potential for user impacts from commercial floatplanes: survey findings whereby 90 percent or more of the respondents supported floatplane and motor bans, and highlighting the need to protect the wild solitude and sensitive habitat of nesting loons in their analysis, among many other prudent factors.

Now, surprisingly, at the 12th hour, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis has weak legs to implement the ban on floatplanes which has been called for over 16 years. Instead, Grannis and the DEC leadership have chosen to turn tail and use specious reasoning, half-truth economics and cherry-picking recreational survey numbers from more recent findings to support their call for permitting floatplane use for another decade.

The specious reasoning is in the DEC's failed attempt to try now to dissuade the Adirondack Park Agency that Lows is "not really a wilderness" but rather is overrun with nonconforming structures and Boy Scouts in "party boats." This despite that, factually, there are very few nonconforming structures and most of the Boy Scout activities take place on the Bog River, far removed from Lows Lake. The so-called "party boat" is a simple craft used to transport disabled Boy Scouts, which rarely plies the waters of Lows. You would think the DEC's leadership could find stronger reasoning to back their position than pinching disabled Boy Scouts.

DEC's half-truth economics in their proposal are even more dismal. Grannis and his assistant commissioner, Chris Amato, in contrast to their predecessors, now fight for 10 more years of floatplanes so as to secure the commercial business of two floatplane operators. While there is merit in considering the economic impact of any DEC decision at Lows, it's most important to recognize that fostering private business is directly contrary to the purposes and policies of the Forest Preserve. With the vast majority of Adirondack lake acreage open to motorized uses, the DEC would do us fair by considering those users of Lows Lake, such as wilderness canoe guide services that now and in the future will benefit from one of the longest motorless canoe ways in the Eastern U.S. once the float ban is put in place, as it should be. Now that makes economic sense and is in keeping with the State Land Master Plan's wilderness goals for Lows Lake.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect in DEC's weak arguments for extending floatplane use on Lows Lake is their raucous manipulation of user survey data. Commissioner Grannis has chosen to cherry pick narrow findings in a much broader study, which he asserts show that floatplane impacts on Lows Lake are no longer of such great concern to canoeists and paddlers. This despite the studies' own findings by Dr. Chad Dawson of SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry that, without question, there is a vast majority of users who believe that floatplane use on this wild lake is inconsistent and should be eliminated in accord with DEC and APA's 2003 plan. Once again, the DEC now is not presenting the full story in its policy turnaround that just does not hold up to simple scrutiny.

Despite DEC's odd and incongruous behavior in its policy reversal, the decision now lies at the hands of the Adirondack Park Agency - an agency that must apply sound policy and wilderness management experience to the matter. A so-called compromise alternative proposal to keep floatplanes to just three more years is, frankly, just as damaging as the first calling for 10 years, because both such actions would violate the Park Agency law and practice, and the resource.

The State Land Master Plan, which the APA administers, is unequivocally clear that Lows should be managed as a wilderness canoe route and that floatplane elimination is required. Sixteen years of delay is long enough. If the commissioners value the integrity of the APA Act and their authority over the State Land Master Plan, we must hope they will hear the still, small voice of wilderness over the roar of engines and economic falsehood being handed to them by the DEC.

A vote for DEC's amendment at this point, given the weakness of DEC's foot-dragging proposal, would be tantamount to handing over their authority - and the Park's wildness - to a department which, at least in this case, has forgotten its primary and essential mandate in "forever wild." Chairman Curt Stiles of the APA and the Agency members should trust that small voice and their own state lands staff, who recommend outright denial of the DEC's amendment that would continue - for any length of time - floatplane use on Lows Lake.

Dan Plumley is director of Park protection for the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. He lives in Keene.