Local green groups are applauding the passing of the state’s $4.2 billion environmental bond act as a benefit and a relief for both the land and the taxpayers in the Adirondack Park.

The Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022, which was presented as a statewide proposition on the back of the ballot this Election Day, passed by a more than 2 to 1 margin, according to unofficial election results on Wednesday.

Ten out of twelve Adirondack countries joined the more than 59% of voters statewide who voted to approve the bond act on Tuesday. In Essex County, 8,408 people voted “yes” to the proposition while 5,501 voted against it. In Franklin County, the bond act passed with a majority of 8,408 “yes” votes over 5,543 “no” votes. More than 3.34 million people statewide voted in favor of the act, according to unofficial election results, and more than 1.6 million people — or 28% of voters — voted against it. More than 12% of voters left the proposition blank.

The state’s Conservative Party has opposed the act, saying it would bring new debt to the state during a time of high interest rates. The party has pointed out that the state has not finished spending environmental bond act money it approved in 1996.

With the act, the state has more of the money it needs to meet the fossil fuel emissions goals it set in 2019 with the Climate Act, which calls for an 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 2050.

The new bond act sets aside $1.5 billion for air and water pollution reduction and climate change mitigation — green energy like wind, solar and heat pumps; zero-emission school buses; urban tree programs; retrofitting buildings with efficient products; and carbon sequestration on land.

Around $1.1 billion of the money would be for flood risk reduction, including shoreline restorations, relocating or repairing infrastructure and roads at risk of flooding, and restoring the environment from flood damage. The bond act states that 40% of the funds should benefit disadvantaged communities if practicable, but that those communities should otherwise benefit from “no less” than 35% of the total funds.

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Green groups respond

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On election night, Peter Bauer — the executive director of North Creek-based green group Protect the Adirondacks — and John Sheehan — the director of communications for Elizabethtown-based green group the Adirondack Council — both highlighted the $650 million set aside in the act for water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades, shoreline preservation and algal bloom prevention as needed in the Adirondacks. They both want to see public water systems upgraded in the park.

Some of the old infrastructure in the Adirondacks — such as culverts — wasn’t built to withstand the amount of rainfall that lands here annually these days, according to Bauer. He said that annual rainfall has increased by 30% in the last 25 years as the climate has warmed, and he doesn’t expect that trend to start tracking down anytime soon.

“This is really the state’s first down payment on getting serious about climate change,” Bauer said.

Both environmentalists said that this money could also ease the financial burden on taxpayers for costly water upgrades. Especially in small communities like those in the Adirondacks, they said, this money could keep local communities out of financial distress. Sheehan said that with the act, the state could grant between 50 to 70% of the total cost of these water projects.

“That really can be a financial lifesaver for a town that only has a few hundred residents, and that’s most of the Adirondacks,” Sheehan said.

Adirondack Council Executive Director William Janeway submitted an op-ed about the bond act to the Enterprise ahead of Tuesday’s election. In it, he stressed that tax bases in the Adirondacks are “too small to raise millions of dollars for new projects” without exceeding their state-issued tax caps or overburdening the people who live there. He estimated that there will be around $200 million worth of water projects in the Adirondacks that will need funding in the coming years.

“Without the bond act, those projects would have to be paid for mostly by local property taxpayers,” Janeway said in a statement Wednesday. “With the bond act, the state will foot 50 or 75% of that bill. That is a huge relief.”

Janeway wrote in his op-ed that the act could help curb the impacts of climate change “and prepare for its consequences.”

State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos echoed Janeway’s thoughts last week during a visit to Saranac Lake, where he was promoting the developing Adirondack Rail Trail. Seggos believed the bond act would save taxpayers countless billions of dollars in storm damage costs in the future, and potentially save lives — he referenced Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ida together as costing billions of dollars in damages to the North Country.

“We’re talking about a $4.2 billion investment now to avoid those kinds of damages in the future,” Seggos said last week.

Addressing concerns that some money in the new bond act would go unspent like in the 1996 act, Seggos said last week that there was a key difference between the 1996 bond act and the one before voters on Tuesday — the 1996 one had a memorandum of understanding which “tied up” $82 million of $1.75 billion. This MOU required that the DEC had to come to agreement with the state legislature on how each of those million dollars was spent. Seggos said the legislature realized that it takes more time to spend money when it’s subject to negotiation.

There is $300 million in unallocated money in the newly-approved bond act.

The bond act boosts capital funding for the DEC by $15 million — from $75 million to $90 million — to improve accessibility to state lands, rehabilitate campgrounds and upgrade recreational facilities as part of the Adventure NY Program. That could include funding for improvements at local fish hatcheries, Sheehan said.

Another $650 million will go toward open space land conservation and recreation, an allocation Bauer hopes will go to the Adirondacks. The park has a multi-generational legacy of bipartisan protection of open space in the Adirondacks, Bauer said, and it’s what this park is “internationally known for.”

The 2019 Climate Act established New York’s Climate Action Council, which is developing a Scoping Plan to chart the course for the act’s emissions reduction goals. Bauer sees the components of the new bond act as “the first bits” of the plan, which he hopes to see finalized sometime in the next six months. The Climate Action Council is expected to release its final plan on Jan. 1, 2023, according to the state’s website. A draft was released in January 2022.

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Staff Writer Aaron Cerbone contributed reporting.