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Faced
with a pending lawsuit from a regional green group, the state
Department of Environmental Conservation is pledging to manage the
man-made Lows Lake as if it were classified as wilderness – even
though it is not.
Last
month, three state agency designees on the Adirondack Park Agency
Board of Commissioners reversed their previous positions and struck
down a proposal that would have included the water and lakebed of
Lows Lake in the wilderness classification of roughly 10,000 acres
of recently acquired state land surrounding it.
After
the vote, Adirondack Mountain Club Executive Director Neil Woodworth
told WNBZ that a lawsuit could follow the APA decision.
He
said it is the agency’s duty to classify all recently acquired lands
and that the State Land Master Plan allows for waters to be included
in classification packages.
But
although the measure to include the water failed, preceded by a
media blitz by angered local officials opposed to the expansion of
agency jurisdiction, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis is making some
promises to the mountain club.
“Effective immediately, the department will manage Lows Lake as a
wilderness lake, subject only to existing riparian rights and the
limited floatplane access recently provided for,” Grannis writes in
a letter to Woodworth. “I am writing to reconfirm the department’s
commitment to establishing a wilderness canoe route through Lows
Lake as called for in the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.”
Several privately owned parcels on the lake have grandfathered
riparian rights, and even motorboats will be allowed on the lake in
some areas – both of which are inconsistent with the wilderness
designation.
The
mountain club brought the Lows Lake battle to the forefront of
recent discussion after suing DEC for allowing the continued use of
floatplanes on the popular canoeing and fishing water body.
Several of its members had complained to DEC that the presence of
the engine driven machines was ruining their wilderness experience.
Local
governments fired back, claiming that trips to Lows Lake were vital
to the survival of the two remaining floatplane operators in the
park.
The
current plan will eliminate floatplane access on January 1, 2012.
-Jon Alexander, 12-9-09 |