NEWCOMB – Protect the Adirondacks won a temporary court injunction against the state Department of Environmental Conservation when a judge halted work on a snowmobile trail near here last week.

The green group had filed for an injunction against the DEC’s tree cutting for the “community connector” trails, which are 9 to 12 feet wide. Protect says they are not in compliance with state law and argues that the large number of trees removed goes against Article 14, Section 1 of the state constitution, which prohibits destruction of timber on the state Forest Preserve.

Protect is suing the state over the trails based on the timber claim. The injunction halts work on the Newcomb-Minerva trail at least until today, when a hearing is scheduled to determine if the injunction should remain in place until another hearing on July 25.

The injunction, which came from Associate Justice Christine Clark, Appellate Division, Third Department, in part blocks the DEC from cutting “or otherwise destroying trees in the Adirondack Forest Preserve for the construction of Class II Community Connector snowmobile trails and from otherwise clearing, grading, scraping, excavating or filling the land for such trails or otherwise changing the terrain of the so-called Minerva Newcomb North Hudson Class II Community Connector snowmobile trail.”

Protect admits in a press release that its “efforts to stop tree cutting on other new 9-12 foot wide class II community connector snowmobile trails in 2014 and 2015 were unsuccessful.”