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The state’s
transportation, environmental conservation and Adirondack Park
Agency heads met Wednesday morning at an Adirondack Northway rest
area to sign an agreement establishing new protocols for state
transportation crews working inside the Adirondack Park.
The catalyst for the
agreement was thousands of Forest Preserve trees illegally cut along
state Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake by DOT’s contract
crews.
The three-ringed
binder agreement – known as the Green Book – governs such things
from routine highway maintenance to the practice of managing
invasive species within the blue line.
APA Chairman Curt
Stiles said getting three agencies to agree, in writing, on how they
conduct themselves within their own jurisdiction is no small feat.
“This is not window
dressing these folks are working closer together than they ever have
to put this together. And I think it’s a sincere effort and it’s a
constructive effort, and I really applaud the result of it. Because
to get three large, or two large and one small, agencies together on
the same page to say that they agree to things is I think an
accomplishment in itself sometimes.”
The relationship
hasn’t always been so close. In 2005, responding to complaints from
local elected leaders, the DOT hired crews to cut hazardous trees
along a stretch of state Route 3 in the Town of Harrietstown.
Poorly supervised,
the contract crews cut thousands of healthy trees that were inside
the Forest Preserve.
That prompted an
outcry from people like Dan Plumley of the Association for the
Protection of the Adirondacks.
“We filed the formal
violation of the Forest Preserve over the Route 3 cutting – which
was illegal – that led to a process in which the DEC established a
consent order with the DOT to address these kinds of problems
including revamping the Green Book with respect to how they handle
hazard trees in the future.”
Local leaders were
also upset that none of the wood was made available to local
residents or governments and was instead taken to a DOT facility in
Lake Clear.
In their prepared
remarks, the commissioners made no specific mention of the 2005 tree
cutting which saw DOT pay out a quarter million dollars as part of a
settlement with DEC and APA.
Instead, as
Canada-bound trucks idled in the rest area, DOT Commissioner Astrid
Glynn spoke of the new-found partnership between state agencies.
“And the document may
seem like a bunch of green paper but it’s a lot more than that. Its
hours and hours of thought and care by people who are involved in
making sure that we know what is the right thing to do. It’s the
document that guides us through our partnership and that every day
makes sure that we treat this place as the very special place it
is.”
But DEC Commissioner
Pete Grannis said the tree cutting fiasco was a catalyst for forcing
the state agencies to work closer together.
“Things go along
pretty smoothly until a crisis hits and all of the sudden people
have to make decisions and then realize that there may be a gap in
our information and I think that’s what this Green Brook update
closes or starts to close or seeks to close.”
The signing of the
so-called Green Book does not put an end to many issues that are
still a source of friction between some environmental groups and
DOT.
Brian Houseal of the
Adirondack Council said the heavy use of road salt is one issue that
needs more study. “DOT should be looking at alternatives to road
salt on our – again, in our fragile areas – where drainage would go
into lakes and wetlands.”
The use of herbicides
along the DOT’s railroad corridor has also been controversial,
especially in the communities of Lake Clear, Mount Arab and Beaver
River.
Ed Frantz, the DOT’s
point man for the Adirondack Park – a position created by the tree
cutting settlement – said that so far he’s only had a few complaints
about herbicides since DOT began meeting with affected communities.
“We had four calls regarding our spraying this year – and I
personally get the calls all the signs have contact information for
me – so four calls in all how many thousands of people who interface
with that railroad…”
Frantz added that DOT
would be briefing the Adirondack Park Agency’s Board of
Commissioners on the road salt issue this fall.
-Jacob Resneck,
8-28-08
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