Adirondack Mountain Club
Conservation Update
On Friday, Sept. 11, the Adirondack Park Agency classified Lows Lake as Wilderness, providing added protection to two important wilderness canoe routes.
This landmark decision also confirms that when the state wholly owns the bed and waters of a lake in the Adirondack Park, as it does with Lows Lake, it is part of the Forest Preserve, protected by the Forever Wild clause of the state Constitution.
Lows Lake is the hub of two multi-day wilderness canoe routes: Bog River to Lows Lake to Little Tupper Lake via Bog Lake, Lake Lila and Rock Lake, and the route from Bog River through Lows Lake to the Oswegatchie River in the heart of the Five Ponds Wilderness.
APA’s action is a vital step in protecting the wild character of these canoe routes, which offer rare opportunities in the Adirondacks for quiet canoeing and kayaking. This is the proper follow-up to the agency’s decision to phase out floatplane use on the lake by the end of 2011.
The APA, by a 6-4 vote, added most of the waters and bed of Lows Lake to the Five Ponds Wilderness. The rest of the lake was classified as Primitive, which also prohibits motorized uses. The classification plan now goes to Gov. Paterson for final approval.
This classification is a clear statement by the APA that it is committed to fulfilling its obligation under the Master Plan to manage Lows Lake as Wilderness, and prevents potential backsliding in the future.
We’d like to thank the many ADK members who wrote to APA and supported this classification plan.
Read APA’s staff memo describing the classification.
Neil Woodworth, Executive Director
Allison D. Beals, Director of Government Relations & Conservation
Adirondack Mountain Club
301 Hamilton Street, Albany, New York 12210
Phone: 518-449-3870
• 4/22/2009 - APA OKs Plan to Ban Floatplanes on Lows Lake After 2011
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) passed a resolution to ban floatplanes on Lows Lake after 2011.
This is a positive end result to a lengthy and arduous battle. The serene, wild character of
Lows Lake will finally be protected from floatplane landings by the 2012 paddling season.
Although the latest plan will continue to allow floatplanes to land on Lows Lake throughout
the next three seasons, ADK was victorious in getting the APA and DEC to begin the process for wilderness classification of the Lows Lake Primitive Area, Lows Lake itself, as well as any unclassified lands on the southern shore of Lows Lake. These tracts will be considered for
addition to the Five Ponds Wilderness Area.
The start of this classification process is long overdue. With this recommendation put forth by the APA, Lows Lake will be managed appropriately, without contest.
Throughout the debate over floatplane use, ADK had learned that the lake itself had been intended to be classified as Wilderness. ADK has always known that these lands were wild, no matter what DEC considered their classification. Thanks to the hard work from our members and staff, these lands will be classified indisputably.
Read ADK’s press release
here.
Allison Beals
Director of Government Relations & Conservation
Adirondack Mountain Club
• Funding Restored, Tax Freeze Axed, Bottle Bill Expanded in Final Budget
The state Senate approved the final environmental budget bill Friday afternoon (April 3), following the lead of the Assembly, which passed the budget earlier this week. Considering the states grim fiscal circumstances, environmental programs fared well. The $132 billion spending plan restores funding to the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), while expanding the Bottle Bill and striking a provision to cap property taxes paid on Forest Preserve and other state owned land.
EPF
The budget sets the EPF level at $222 million for 2009-10, a $17 million increase from the Executive Budget. That is still far less than the $300 million authorized for fiscal 2009-10 in the EPF Enhancement Act of 2007. And it is less than $255 million that the Legislature approved last year for 2008-09, although that amount was reduced to $205 million in the Deficit Reduction Bill. But it certainly could have been worse.
The EPF includes $60 million for open space projects, which is critical when properties such as Follensby Pond and the former Finch, Pruyn lands in the Adirondacks and Hemlock and Canadice lakes in the Rochester area are available. The EPF also includes $7 million to help the Department of Environmental Conservation maintain the 4.5 million acres under its jurisdiction. This stewardship funding pays for ADK’s Professional Trails Crew contract and other projects to maintain backcountry trails. This funding also helps DEC update the unit management plans that are essential to recreational access to state land.
Perhaps the best news about EPF is that its funding stream remains intact. When lawmakers created EPF in 1993, they wanted to ensure a reliable funding source for environmental projects, a funding source that was available in good and bad economic times. They decided to support EPF primarily with proceeds from the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT). The Executive Budget would have replaced all but $80 million of the Transfer Tax funding with proceeds from an expanded Bottle Bill. The Division of the Budget estimated that expanding the Bottle Bill to include bottles of water and noncarbonated beverages would generate $118 million from unclaimed nickels. (Miscellaneous sources, such as sales of bluebird license plates, would have provided the remaining $7 million.)
ADK supported an expanded Bottle Bill, which will reduce litter in the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves, state parks and other natural areas, but it did not support using Bottle Bill proceeds to replace the RETT funding. If the funding stream was changed, and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill had not been approved, the EPF would have been left high and dry. A modified version of the Bottle Bill was approved by the Senate on Friday (see below), but there is no guarantee that it will generate the amount of revenue needed to maintain the EPF. Ironically, the more successful the expanded Bottle Bill is in reducing litter and encouraging recycling, the less revenue it will generate.
Bigger Better Bottle Bill
ADK has lobbied for an expansion of New York’s Bottle Bill for 20 years, and this year we got it. As of June 1, the 5 cent deposit on beer and soda bottles will also cover water bottles, including flavored waters and vitamin waters.
As of April 15, 80 percent of all unclaimed deposits, which have been going to the bottling industry, will go into the states General Fund. That’s expected to raise about $100 million a year.
While the new Bottle Bill doesn’t cover all beverage containers, it is a significant improvement. The original Bottle Bill, passed in 1982, has been a great success.
Over the past 20 years, the average recycling in New Yorkers has been 75 percent for these beverage containers. Since the Bottle Bill was enacted, New York has seen a 70-80 percent reduction in beverage-container litter and a 30 percent reduction in overall litter.
Tax Cap Dead
New York will continue to pay its fair share of local taxes on the Forest Preserve and other state-owned lands.
Under the Executive Budget, state payments to local governments and school districts would have been frozen at 2008-09 levels, which would have caused double-digit property tax increases in some rural communities and hampered open-space protection statewide. The freeze would have had a significant fiscal impact on communities in the Adirondacks, Catskills and other parts of the state.
It would also have severely undermined local support for state land acquisition and crippled the states open-space program at a time when so many critical parcels are available. Fortunately, Governor Paterson and the Legislature agreed to strike the proposal from the budget.
You Did It
The 2009-10 state budget was a tough battle, but we did well. But all our lobbying efforts here in Albany would have amounted to nothing if lawmakers did not realize we represent constituents from their districts who care deeply about these issues. In the past few months, countless letters, e-mails and phone calls (as well as a number of face-to-face meetings) from ADK members to state legislators helped turn the tide. If you contacted your representatives on these issues, you can rest assured that you have made a significant, tangible and lasting contribution to the protection of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves and other wild places in New York. Thank you for all your efforts.
Allison
D. Beals
Dir. of Gov't Relations & Conservation
Adirondack Mountain
Club
Government and Legal Affairs Office
301 Hamilton Street
Albany, New York
12210
phone: 518-449-3870
fax: 518-449-3875
Visit us at www.adk.org