The risk of projectiles ricocheting into state Route 9 and I-87 led the U.S. Army branch contracting with a private security consulting firm to pull its support for a project to test-fire military cannons in the northeastern Adirondacks, records show.

The communications from 2023 obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the Adirondack Explorer show a competency manager at Benét Laboratories in Watervliet detailing a “stop work” letter to Unconventional Concepts Inc.

Those documents can be viewed at tinyurl.com/2vm7z3zz and tinyurl.com/7m9bpcsx.

The company, owned by Michael Hopmeier, has tried since 2021 to get an Adirondack Park Agency permit for the operation. It would be on property near a former missile silo owned by Unconventional Concepts Inc. The APA issued six notices of incomplete application and denied an appeal before deciding in November to send it to a public hearing before an administrative law judge. Such hearings are the only way the agency can substantially modify or deny a permit.

The hearing’s start date has been delayed three times so far, the process fraught with allegations of ethical conflicts and legal challenges.

The hearing’s purpose is to determine whether or not an artillery testing range belongs in the Adirondack Park. A key question has been who the customer is for the testing. These communications confirm it is not the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (DEVCOM).

Matthew Norfolk, attorney for Hopmeier, declined to comment.

Hopmeier also declined to comment.

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Who is the testing for?

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The Explorer reported in April 2024 that DEVCOM, had a contract with Hopmeier for the cannon testing project, but issued a stop-work order in February 2023.

The newly received FOIA records show the contract was for $692,000.

DEVCOM is the Army’s research and development branch, and Benét Laboratories in Watervliet is a part of it. The lab was expected to provide howitzers for the testing.

DEVCOM spokesperson Timothy Rider confirmed multiple times for the Explorer that the Army branch had dropped the contract. In late 2025 he added that DEVCOM “has no new contracts with UCI that involve large-caliber cannon testing on the UCI Adirondack facility. Also, the Armaments Center is not providing howitzers to UCI for ballistic testing.”

The Explorer has not been able to verify if another military branch took up a similar contract, or if another contractor hired Hopmeier’s team to do the work.

But the FOIA documents reveal more about DEVCOM’s about-face.

On Feb. 8, 2023, the competency manager at Benét Laboratories sent what appears to be an internal email about the fate of the Adirondack Park testing range. In that email, the manager says that senior leadership determined DEVCOM can conduct the testing itself and “found that there is no longer a need to pursue the establishment of a firing range as part of this contract.”

Other factors that led to the decision, the email reads, include “costs for full safety assessment and risk associated with projectile ricochet into route 9 and I-87 played a role.”

In a Feb. 13, 2023 email Hopmeier is copied on, a mechanical engineer at the Watervliet lab directs “that all work on the firing range cease at UCI in Lewis, NY.” The engineer also requests the return of metal parts and ballistically similar fuses be returned to the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.

The state Department of Transportation did not respond to the Explorer’s inquiry about whether it was aware of the initial firing range proposal and the Army’s concern about its potential safety impact on local roads.

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The adjudicatory hearing

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While Hopmeier has declined to respond about the sponsorship of his project, in APA communications he has continued to stress that the proposal would serve the U.S. military.

Protect the Adirondacks, an environmental advocacy organization and one of the parties in the APA hearing, wants the hearing to include this question.

David Greenwood, the state Department of Environmental Conservation administrative law judge overseeing the hearing, has not yet made a determination on that.

Claudia Braymer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, said the FOIA documents bolsters their argument to include it.

We were going to bring in the artillery firing experts to talk about the safety risks,” she said. “It just seemed so absurd that this was going to be happening and not on an established military base where there’s already safety protocols.”

Meanwhile Norfolk is attempting to get the hearing thrown out by suing the APA in state Supreme Court in Essex County. Norfolk has alleged that APA Board Member Rush Holt Jr. had a conflict of interest when he voted to hold the adjudicatory hearing as he is a dues-paying member of the Adirondack Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization staunchly against the project and a party to the hearing.

Norfolk has also challenged APA Executive Director Barbara Rice’s appointment of Greenwood to preside over the hearing, citing ethical concerns over Greenwood’s employment history with the Adirondack Council. Twenty-five years ago he was a policy analyst for the organization.

The Adirondack Council filed a hearing motion challenging Norfolk’s status as Hopmeier’s counsel because Norfolk had hired the former APA lawyer, Sarah Reynolds, who represented the agency in an appeal hearing on the project. Greenwood declined to remove Norfolk from the proceedings.

Norfolk has now requested Greenwood issue an order to delay the hearing until the lawsuit is concluded. The adjudicatory hearing is currently slated to begin on April 22, but the court appearance is April 20.