Environmental ups and downs
Adirondack Council releases annual 'State of the Park' report
SARANAC LAKE — The Adirondack Council has released its 43rd “State of the Park” report, summarizing and assessing all the environmental happenings in the Adirondacks over the past year, and labeling each one with either a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
As the council prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025, it titled the theme of this report “Poised for Action.” Council Communications Director John Sheehan said there are a lot of studies, bills and programs expected in 2025.
“Poised for Action is a call to mobilize all those who care about this national treasure,” Executive Director Raul Aguirre said. “For the Adirondack Park to thrive, we need more people to know it exists and to care about its future.”
Within the coming year, the state Adirondack Park Agency will seek the first major review of its 53-year-old State Land Master Plan, a committee to implement recommendations of the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force has been proposed, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is working with a design firm to research social behavior and use data for visitor use management planning in the High Peaks and the state is compiling a list of at-risk species to keep them off the Endangered Species List, which is required every 10 years.
“Threats to Adirondack waters increase, including recent rulings by the Supreme Court, changing federal budget priorities, warming lake temperatures, increasing spread of invasive species and aging septic infrastructure,” Aguirre said.
Sheehan said they have concerns, but they are also encouraged. He said they are thrilled the state Legislature is paying more attention to the Adirondacks with bills and funding.
“It’s always sort of a mixed bag,” Council Communications Associate Justin Levine said.
For an example, Gov. Kathy Hochul got a thumbs down for her proposed executive budget, which included cutting funding for Clean Water Infrastructure Act grants in half and cuts to the Adirondack Diversity Initiative, the Timbuctoo Summer Climate and Careers Institute and the Survey of Climate and Adirondack Lake Ecosystems. Her budget also would have used funding from the Environmental Protection Fund for day-to-day state expenses like salaries. The Council said this would have been a “raid” of the EPF, which is only meant to finance capital projects.
But then, the state Legislature got a thumbs up for restoring that funding in the final budget.
“We were fortunate that the state Assembly and Senate restored most of that stuff and actually added funding to some pretty important programs,” Levine said.
The state passed a budget with $500 million for clean water grants. The ADI got an extra $120,000 for a total of $420,000. Funding for the Timbuctoo program was reduced but not fully cut. And the proposed use of the $400 million EPF was not put into action.
Levine said there is concern that the executive budget will propose these cuts again in future years.
“Fortunately, our Legislature at this time seems to see the benefits,” he said.
The funding was restored because of Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx; as well as the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus.
The report said the Council is glad the state Legislature did not move forward with a bill state Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, sponsored to change state land classification for lands on the National Register of Historic Places. The entire Forest Preserve is on the registry.
“It could have completely upended our current state land classification system,” Levine said.
They don’t know if it could have opened the Forest Preserve up for development, but they were concerned of the possibility. The report said it was “inexplicabl(e)” that the Assembly passed this. The Senate did not.
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Climate change
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Climate change is the most overarching topic of the report. While on the state and federal levels there’s a lot happening to combat it and prepare for it, the report says there’s a lot more that needs to be done.
“Governor Hochul’s agencies have been slow to incorporate the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act into their day-to-day operations, despite a clear legal mandate to do so,” according to the report. “In July, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli warned that the state was falling behind schedule in its climate goals.”
The Council opines that this is “especially clear” at the APA, which they say “continues to approve large-subdivision plans that contain unneeded roadways and inappropriate scaled-development which do not meet the goals of conservation design principles.”
The state’s 30×30 legislation aims to protect 30% of the state’s lands and waters by the year 2030.
“While the drafted approach needs to include stronger language about permanent protections and detail the steps to achieving them, the DEC is on the right path for identifying how it will meet the remainder of the state’s land and water protection goals,” according to the report.
The state also plans to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and no less than 85% by 2050 from 1990 levels through capping and investing, but the Council says none of the proposals would meet those goals.
“The state really needs to start stepping up their conservation game,” Levine said.
The report says the state is “prioritizing industry comfortability over meeting hard-won standards prioritizing human and environmental health needs.”
New York has set out to have 70% renewably sourced electricity by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2040. But again, Dinapoli said more steps need to be taken faster to meet that goal.
Sheehan said the state Climate Superfund Act has passed both houses and needs Hochul’s signature to take effect. This would require fossil fuel companies to pay for municipal project costs associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation, putting the onus for climate-related disasters on polluters for the first time, Sheehan said.
“Climate pollution is something that is much more understood that it was in the past. I think that we have a pretty good sense of who is acting responsibly and who is refusing to at this point,” he said.
The state will just need to figure out how much to charge for contributing to greenhouse gasses.
While the Joe Biden administration got a thumbs up for making tougher soot standards for power plants, the Supreme Court got a thumbs down for ruling that the EPA could not enforce its Good Neighbor Rule impacting acid rain and overturning the Chevron decision.
Levine said the Chevron decision was “certainly disappointing.”
“Basically, the Supreme Court decided that government agencies could not rely on their own expertise to make decisions,” he said. “That essentially leaves it up to the court system.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren got a thumbs up for proposing a bill to support regulatory agencies negatively impacted by the Chevron decision. This would require courts to defer to judgement of these agencies when creating and enforcing regulations based on federal law when Congress is unclear.
New York Rep. Paul Tonko got a thumbs up for criticizing the EPA for pulling funding from Adirondack research on acid rain.
“The EPA said a decade of budget cuts have depleted its reserves, forcing it to close programs it had been supporting with no-longer-available discretionary funds,” according to the report.
Combined, with the Supreme Court decisions, Sheehan said power plant operators will likely do what is more profitable, not what is less polluting. He said they need to be able to measure the harm this pollution causes.
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APA
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The APA does not have the resources or leadership to do its job properly in the Council’s opinion. For the second consecutive year, they said there are empty APA seats, and that six of the eight citizen members of the 11-member board are serving on expired terms.
The APA got a thumbs up for enforcing the law on the DEC when it was discovered DEC staff were using motor vehicles for administrative tasks in the wilderness. Sheehan said the DEC usually does things the right way, but on the occasions that it does not, it needs to be held to the same standards it holds others to.
The APA got a thumbs down for not releasing its feasibility study into a proposed new headquarters at 1-3 Main St. in Saranac Lake.
“Releasing this report is necessary so that all parties can officially weigh in on the proposal and associated alternatives as part of the public input process regarding the future location of the Agency,” the Council report reads.
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DEC
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The report praised outgoing DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos for his years of work for the environment and gave interim Commissioner Sean Mahar high marks for his work so far.
The report gave the DEC thumbs up for things like land acquisitions, accessibility increases with powered wheelchair rentals at the Great Camp Santanoni Historic Site and a new interactive Accessible Recreation Destinations Map highlighting more than 260 accessible natural areas.
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Mind the animals
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Council members are excited about the potential of a state bill to protect animals crossing roads. The bill passed he state legislature in May. If approved by the Governor, it would have the state investigate high-traffic wildlife corridors, particularly in the Adirondack Park, and find ways to improve wildlife crossings through bridges, culverts, tunnels and fencing, as well as reducing habitat fragmentation, reconnecting habitat now divided by roads and giving the state access to federal grants designated for improving wildlife crossings.
Levine said this would protect public safety and reduce motor vehicle accidents and fatalities. He said the statistics on animal fatalities on roadways are “shocking.”
The Adirondacks are currently in their peak season for deer collisions, as the SUNY Albany’s Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research found that around 40% of these crashes happen between October and December.
The state also passed a law which takes effect on Nov. 1 outlawing the killing of non-game wildlife species for cash prizes, awards or entertainment with exceptions for deer, bear, turkey and fish. The report says this should improve the feasibility of natural repopulation by wolves, citing cases of protected gray wolves being killed after being mistaken for Eastern coyote.
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Chemicals
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Several of the Council’s thumbs down were around the APA, DEC, Lake George Park Commission and state Supreme Court Appellate Division allowing the use of the herbicide in Lake George to take care of the invasive Eurasian watermilfoil plant. The Council said this ignores a Minnesota Department of Agriculture finding that the product contains carcinogenic PFAS, and public opposition to is use.
The chemical is effective at killing milfoil, but Sheehan said it is a cheap “shortcut” that has potential side effects.
“Herbicides and other pesticides that were in common use during the 20th Century have now been found to be carcinogens and endocrine interrupters that mimic the hormones that regulate growth in humans and/or wildlife,” according to the report.
“We have sad experience with a number of chemicals that were presented to us as benign but turned out to not be,” Sheehan said.
State Attorney General Letitia James got a thumbs up for taking $6.9 million from chemical companies Bayer and Monsanto for falsely claiming that certain Roundup consumer herbicides were safe and non-toxic. This money is set to be used to protect the pollinators they harmed.
ProcellaCOR uses a newer chemical and Lake George is a drinking water source.
“We just don’t think that should be the testing ground,” Levine said.
The chemical has been applied to the water already. Sheehan said they’ll need long-term research on the impact it may have.
The full report can be read at tinyurl.com/y63jnr2n.