Saranac Lake Marina co-owner Mike Damp stands on his sailboat at the dock site on Lower Saranac Lake. The plans to add covers to the boat slips he rents out on these docks, though approved by the Adirondack Park Agency in June, have been challenged again in court by two green groups and a neighbor of the marina. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — The owners of the Saranac Lake Marina, who have been trying to expand and install covered docks on Lower Saranac Lake for almost a decade, are back in court.

Two environmental groups and a lakefront neighbor of the project site have again sued the state and marina in opposition of the project. This time, the lawsuit focuses on the Adirondack Park Agency, which gave the covered dock plans a green light in June. The lawsuit alleges that the APA decision violated the APA’s freshwater wetland law.

The lawsuit accuses the APA of shirking its regulatory responsibilities to protect wetlands by authorizing the addition of covered docks at the marina’s Ampersand Bay site without requiring a wetlands permit. The APA said the plans for that site minimize the impact on the wetlands there, and that it did not need to require permit because of that. The APA did require a wetlands variance for covered docks proposed at the Crescent Bay portion of the project. But the lawsuit also claims the APA did not have the right to issue this variance.

The lawsuit asks the court to reject the APA’s approval and send the project back to the APA board for proper review. It also requests the court to make the marina owners remove the docks that were installed at both sites last year.

The full lawsuit can be seen at tinyurl.com/3y7vb2kx.

The Enterprise was not able to reach the APA for comment by deadline Tuesday.

Chris Amato, an attorney representing Protect the Adirondacks, said these current docks were installed without the proper permits and that adding covers to the docks can block sunlight, which wetlands vegetation need. To install them, he said pilings were driven into the wetlands, as well as dredging and filling at the sites.

The docks were installed in 2022 with no roofs while the APA’s permit was still being challenged in court. That permit was annulled, but the docks have stayed.

Marina co-owner Mike Damp described these as floating docks with 5-inch anchor legs that have a minimal impact on the wetlands.

Damp said he doesn’t see a reason for the court battle. He believes all the developments he’s made at the marina have improved the wetlands there, and that adding covers to the docks to protect the boats of the people who rent slips there would do significantly less harm to the wetlands than the wooden boathouses that were on the shore when he bought the marina in 2014.

“The issue here is there was a wetlands permit that was required and the fact that you believe that your project is actually going to benefit the wetlands doesn’t mean you don’t need a permit,” Amato said.

That should have been up to the APA to decide, he said. But after years of requiring the permit, and after the former permit was overturned in court, he said the agency “inexplicably” decided the project didn’t need one.

When Damp bought the marina, he said it was a “dump site.” The existing shoreline boathouses were falling into the lake and the toilets flushed into the water. It was and “eyesore and an environmental hazard.” He said he’s been improving it ever since, removing the old boathouses, renovating the sewage system and cleaning invasive milfoil out of the lake.

He tore down the wooden boathouses at the Ampersand Bay site in 2016. Since then, he said, aquatic vegetation and fish beds have flourished.

“I feel really disappointed that one selfish individual and a couple fringe green groups headed up by attorneys can do this much harm to 200 local Tri-Lakes families who have boats at our marina,” Damp said.

He described these local customers as hardworking blue-collar people looking to get out on the lake on the weekends. Right now, their boats are open to the elements and he sees 80-year-old boaters struggling to cover their boats on their own to keep them safe.

Damp said he’s still preparing to install covers, anticipating that the lawsuit won’t be successful.

The lawsuit is brought by Adirondack Wild and Protect the Adirondacks, as well as Thomas Jorling, a former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation who owns a home on Pinehurst Road directly across the bay from a portion of the project.

These lawsuits came as a surprise to Damp’s attorney, Matt Norfolk of Lake Placid, who learned about the legal action when he read a news report on the lawsuits.

In June, Jorling indicated that he would be again suing if the APA approved this project in a public comment on the proposal before the APA.

Jorling called the APA’s actions “cavalier and unlawful” that treated its responsibilities with “disdain.”

“It is astonishing and disturbing when an agency charged with protecting Adirondack wetlands simply chooses to ignore its job to safeguard such significant natural resources,” Adirondack Wild managing partner David Gibson said in a statement. “The agency shrugged at its lawful duties, regulatory responsibilities, and the Appellate Court’s decision. That legal carelessness cannot be tolerated or other wetlands elsewhere in the Park will be at immediate risk. We take this action as a last resort and only because the APA’s arbitrary, unlawful actions harmful to Park wetlands compel us to do so.”

Jorling said this case is not about a grudge. He’s not happy to do this, he said. He said it is the way of the system for developers to fight for their interests and for the state to create regulatory agencies to ensure these projects meet the interests of the public and the environment. But he said the APA has failed to carry out its legal responsibilities.

–

What’s in the lawsuit?

–

In March, the state Supreme Court blocked a permit the APA issued for the marina, saying the APA undervalued the wetlands protection needed at the site by interpreting its regulations in a way that the court deemed “unreasonable,” and which “lacked a rational basis.”

As a result of this court ruling, the developers reconfigured their plans, reducing boat slips to decrease wetland impacts.

The new marina project only sought a variance for the main marina site at Crescent Bay, changing its plans at the annex site at Ampersand Bay to reduce wetland impacts. The APA said since the marina owner was making efforts to minimize the project’s impact on wetlands, it did not need to require a permit there. But the lawsuit contends there’s nothing that allows for an exemption to wetlands permits based on “effort.”

It also argues that the annex site needs a variance, claiming it is not a “replacement” of the preexisting non-conforming structures. They say the new structures do not meet that definition since they are in a slightly different location than the current structures.

The lawsuit also alleges that after the courts overturned the APA’s permit in the spring, APA staff met with marina owners in two meetings which only had a single sentence describing what was discussed then in memos. In these meetings, the lawsuit alleges the APA and marina owners collaborated on how to evade the court’s decision. Damp and Norfolk deny this.

–

Counter-allegations

–

By filing the lawsuit in the Warren County Supreme Court, Norfolk alleges the green groups are trying to avoid Justice Richard Meyer, who presided over past lawsuits over this project and had previously ruled in favor of the state and the marina. Norfolk called this “forum shopping” and said he will be filing a motion to change the court venue. Amato said they can file in any district which has APA offices and they’ve filed in Warren County before.

Norfolk also said both green groups have several board members and officers living outside the Adirondack Park or who are former APA and DEC employees. Norfolk said these people remind him of the “old guard” — they were with the APA when the marina project was in court years ago, and he feels their land management views are not consistent which the APA’s objectives now.

Adirondack Wild is represented in court by the law firm Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, LLP, which Saranac Lake attorney Paul Van Cott works for.

Norfolk said he is evaluating “legal recourse” against Van Cott, as well as former APA board member Chad Dawson who dissented against the project when he was on the board, and former APA employee Mark Rooks who worked on the project when he was at the APA.

He has already demanded that Van Cott and the Whiteman Osterman and Hanna law firm withdraw as counsel for Adirondack Wild. The law firm responded, telling Norfolk that the two-year bar on former APA employees being involved in any case relating to the agency expired for Van Cott. He retired from the APA in 2020.

Norfolk said he intends to challenge Van Cott’s involvement with the case.

Van Cott wrote in an email that neither he nor Dawson or Rooks were associated with the APA in 2023. He said they also did not have “any involvement in APA’s review of the March 2023 application for LS Marina, which resulted in an APA decision that inexplicably failed to require an APA permit for impacts to high value wetlands in Ampersand Bay.”

“Further, I was recused from the review of the prior application, which had required a permit for impacts to those same wetlands. Accordingly, neither Mr. Dawson, Mr. Rooks nor myself are prevented from involvement in challenging APA’s recent decision based on the March 2023 application,” Van Cott wrote.

–

What is proposed?

–

The marina developers could have built docks on the original footprints of preexisting “nonconforming” boathouses without APA approval, since the land they are on is classified as a hamlet — the most lenient APA category — but since Damp wanted to expand and replace the boathouses with new floating dock structures and increase the overall number of boat slips, the project needed the APA’s go-ahead.

Norfolk points out that Damp could have reconstructed 27,218 square feet of preexisting, non-conforming covered docks and enclosed structures along the whole shoreline without APA review. The APA found that the marina expansion would have a more positive impact on the environment than rebuilding the preexisting “nonconforming” marina without APA review. The Supreme Court agreed in its spring ruling.

Norfolk represents the marina as an “eco-friendly” one. One which is replacing the dilapidated former structures, which were falling into the lake and has made several concessions to reduce the project’s impact on the lake ecology.

The main marina location has existed since 1924 and the annex since the late 1950s.

Damp wants to install roofs on 174 of the 277 total slips at the marina’s two sites to protect the boats there.

There are four docks at the main marina site with a total combined 36,000 square feet. There are 177 existing slips at the main marina site. The project would cover 134 of these and leave 43 uncovered.

There are 114 total slips at the annex site which would have 40 covered and 74 uncovered. This was a 50% reduction in covered slips at the annex site since the developers’ last proposal, which had 80.

Years ago, the marina sued the APA, challenging its requirement for a wetlands permit. When the APA approved the project in 2020, the environmental groups began suing the state. In all, there have been four lawsuits and an appeal in this process.

“There are a rare few that would continue the fight as my client does,” Norfolk said in a statement. “Most of us couldn’t bear the financial burden.”

Damp said he keeps fighting for the project because he’s a local who cares about giving lake access to local families.

The marina is currently operating at the main marina location, where it rents boats and leases dock space.

Amato said oral arguments have been scheduled for Sept. 22 but will likely be postponed because a briefing has not been scheduled yet done.