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Salvage yard tops Tupper rail trail session

(Enterprise photo — Morgan Ryan)

TUPPER LAKE — Members of the community convened Wednesday night at the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library for the latest in a series of public information sessions regarding the proposed Adirondack rail trail.

As envisioned, the trail will be a 34-mile multi-purpose stone-dust trail connecting the villages of Tupper Lake, Saranac Lake and Lake Placid.

Town Supervisor Patti Littlefield presented a PowerPoint slideshow of the project’s draft conceptual plan to a crowd of more than 40 people.

“We are not here to debate the rail versus trail because that’s already been done to death,” Littlefield said. “We’re just here to look at this where we’re at today.”

The presentation included detailed looks at everything from trailhead and rest area design to signage and crosswalks. Comments about the plan were aired after Littlefield’s slideshow. Members of the rail trail stakeholders group, including town Planner Paul O’Leary, ROOST Director of Destination Development Michelle Clement and village Code Enforcement Officer Pete Edwards fielded questions and addressed concerns.

Much of the discussion focused on the proposed location of a state Department of Transportation salvage yard in a wooded area north of a playground on Washington Street.

“A big concern I have is the proposed salvage yard — the only salvage yard proposed on the whole corridor,” O’Leary said. “Hopefully we can come to a consensus on another solution than to use that as the salvage yard. I thought it would be an awesome place for parking of the visitors and the snowmobile trailers and all the people on their bikes. Hopefully, the DOT is going to sit down and be receptive to some of these suggestions.”

The purpose of these public information sessions is to collect comments and let community input drive the final conception of the plan.

“We’re looking to compile all of the comments,” state Department of Environmental Conservation’s spokesman David Winchell said. “We’re hoping a lot of what we’re hearing tonight will get incorporated into that final plan and we’ll make some changes so people are comfortable with that.”

As for the project’s timeline, Winchell’s best guess is constrained by the pending lawsuit between the state and the Adirondack Rail Preservation Society. “Right now the most definitive timeline I can give you is that this time next year we will have the final design in hand,” he said. “A lot of the other stuff I can’t say. We cannot remove the rail and ties until we get through the legal matter. We’re waiting on the judge to make his decision.”

There are three more public information sessions in the coming days. Lake Placid will hold a meeting at 6 tonight at the North Elba Town Hall and the DEC will be holding two meetings next week: On Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Tupper Lake Emergency Services Building, and at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the DEC headquarters in Ray Brook. Public Comment will be taken from 3 to 5 p.m. each of those days with a DEC presentation on the plan beginning at 6 p.m. both days.

The plan can be downloaded here: www.dec.ny.gov/lands/62816.html Written comments are encouraged and can be mailed to Steve Guglielmi, senior forester, NYSDEC Region 5, P.O. Box 296, Ray Brook NY 12977 or by email to r5@dec.ny.gov.

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