SL SAND PIT COULD YIELD 10 YEARS OF MATERIAL

The Village of Saranac Lake may have ten years worth of material remaining in the village sand pit located off Will Rogers Drive.

That’s what engineer Andy Abdallah of Architectural & Engineering Design Associates of Plattsburgh told village board members this week.

Abdallah outlined several options for continuing to mine the property, which was once sought by Wal-Mart as part of a plan to build a 121,000 square foot shopping center in the village.

If the village mined the southern end of the 10-acre sand pit to its fullest potential, Abdallah said it could yield 96,000 cubic yards of material.  Considering the village uses about 10,000 cubic yards of sand on the roads each winter, there’s enough to last 9-10 years.

That doesn’t include the sand in the northern end of the property, behind Crossfield Avenue, where the village could mine another 87,000 cubic yards.  If additional permits and agreements from neighbors are secured, the parcel could yield 107,000 cubic yards of sand – another 10 years worth of material.

However, Abdallah said there are some “unknowns”.  He suggested test holes be dug to determine the quality of the material.

The estimate on the southern half of the sand pit includes mining 26,000 cubic yards from the esker behind the ALDI property – a move that would require a new access road to be built to the sand pit.

Abdallah said the village could create a new access road using a small corner of the ALDI property, if it can secure an agreement with the company.

Trustee John McEneany said the village should look into putting in an access road along a 50-foot wide strip of village-owned land next to the Carcuzzi property.  That way, he said, they wouldn’t need to create an entryway across the ALDI property.

Abdallah said they studied that possibility.  “It’s frankly not very practical,” he said.  Expensive retaining walls would have to be built along the neighboring properties.  “I think the single biggest factor would be the cost of making that accessible.”

But McEneany said its worth investigating, especially considering the property’s potential uses once all the sand has been mined.

“At some point that land will become useless as a sand pit and will be developed for either industrial, residential, mixed use or whatever,” McEneany said.  “The ideal thing would be to make that a usable property for the village or for sale to get it back on the tax rolls.”

The Department of Environmental Conservation has asked the village to perform a visual analysis of what the area would look like if the esker behind the ALDI property was removed.   

“That’s the next step they want us to do to improve our chances of getting a mining permit,” said Village Mayor Tom Michael.

Abdallah said DEC is concerned about visual impacts.  “Doing the visual analysis is going to be absolutely necessary,” he said.

The engineer said the board needs to decide how much it wants to mine on the property so the necessary permits can be sought from DEC and APA.  He said it “makes sense” to look at the whole property – both the north and south parcels.  “There is a lot of potential for mining material,” Abdallah said.

Board members said they wanted to gather additional information before deciding what steps to take next.

The land around the current sand pit isn’t the only location the village is considering mining – a larger, village-owned parcel behind the wastewater treatment plant is also a potential source of road sand.

-Chris Knight

BRUSH FIRE BURNS ONE ACRE IN SARANAC LAKE

A forest and brush fire burned about an acre in Saranac Lake on Wednesday before being contained by firefighters and forest rangers.

The blaze was reported by a passerby around 3:45 p.m. in an area known as “The Pines,” located between Pine Street and Moody Pond.

Saranac Lake Fire Chief Don Duso said the first firefighters arrived on scene within minutes. “What they found up there was a pretty good brush fire,” he said. “Brush, you know, grass – everything just burning and it was burning good. From a distance, it was puffing up a pretty good plume of smoke. We had a good fire up there.”

Two dozen firefighters from Saranac Lake were joined by equipment and manpower from the Bloomingdale, Lake Placid and Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Departments.  DEC Forest Rangers and Saranac Lake Police also responded.

Dave Bickford, First Assistant Saranac Lake Fire Chief, said the fire was in a hilly, heavily wooded and hard to reach area.  “It was difficult to get water up there because it’s so steep,” he said. 

At one point the wind picked up, Bickford said, prompting fears the fire could spread to nearby homes on Labrador Lane. 

Volunteers dug a fire line, carried hoses by hand and carried water backpacks up to the fire scene, eventually bringing the blaze under control.  “Once they got water established and got people together, they knocked it down pretty good,” Bickford said.  “We had a great response.”

Duso said the fire was sparked by kids playing with matches, although no arrests were made. “They found that a couple kids had been up playing with matches,” he said. “There wasn’t any arrests or anything; the kids admitted it. They were reprimanded by the police, (department), environmental conservation and their parents and just left at that.”

The owner of the property wasn’t immediately known although some thought it may be village-owned land.  

No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported.

Saranac Lake firefighters returned to the fire station by 7:42 p.m. 

Bickford said the brush fire is a reminder that the ground is still very dry.  “People should use caution,” he said.

-Chris Knight & Jacob Resneck

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS CONSIDER HEALTH CARE CAREERS

Health care recruiters are reaching out to high school students across the North Country to advertise careers available in the health care sector.

The effort is designed to stem the exodus of young people from local communities. 

Adirondack Medical Center representatives and the Canton-based Northern Area Health Education Center continued their tour of the North Country, stopping at Saranac Lake Central High School on Tuesday to counsel 11th and 12th graders about local career prospects in the region.

The reps visited Tricia Preston’s morning wellness class. The teacher told her class that there are good paying jobs at local hospitals.

“There are plenty of opportunities that you will see,” she said. “There is a shortage in the North County of professionals in all of these areas.  They’re going to give you the opportunity what salary ranges there could be and what education you might need for these areas.”

Jessica Darney Buehler, manager of the Adirondack Wellness Network, explained that outreach for recruiting has been made easier by partnering with local schools.

“We’re networking to try to engage kids in trying to explore health careers,” she said. “So we’re networking with the hospital and the school and kids.”

Many graduating seniors may be skeptical that they can find good paying jobs in the region, explained Buehler. The goal of the program is to introduce young adults to good-paying health care opportunities through a Web site, www.myhealthcareer.org.

Lynn Sorel, a program assistant with the Northern Area Health Education Center, said their task is challenging.

“I’ve asked several classes whether they want to stay in northern New York or not and really not too many kids want to stay,” she said. “So that’s what we’re really trying to do is attract them to the area and tell them that there is a lot more out there especially in health care.”

When Sorel polled the twenty-odd students in one morning class, only a few said they didn’t know what they wanted to do after graduation. The response impressed Sorel who admitted she hadn’t had a clear idea after her own graduation.

Two 18-year-old seniors, Mari Walsh and Luke Neill said they are already interested in pursuing health care careers.

“I want to study kinesiology and then go to grad school for physical therapy,” Walsh said. “It’s going to be a lot of biology, some chemistry and hopefully working with some real patients.”

“I’m thinking about doing the summer scholars program through NAHEC,” Neill said, “Working at the hospital in Saranac Lake, I’ll get a good feel for what department I like best.”

Neill is applying for one of two 100-hour paid internships offered by NAHEC and AMC this summer. The deadline is May 26 and applications are available on the Web site.

Senior Carolyn Mader, 17, said she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do but was certain she wanted to move away after graduation.  “I might come back here when I’m older but I want to go away for awhile,” she said.

The schoolwide tour will continue with a stop in northern Franklin County later this week. Tupper Lake students have already had a presentation and Sorel said she hopes to schedule a presentation in Lake Placid soon.

-Jacob Resneck

MCHUGH ON GAS PRICES, STIMULUS CHECKS, CAMPAIGN

Congressman John McHugh was in Saranac Lake this week to attend the unveiling of a commemorative stamp honoring Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau.

Following the ceremony, McHugh spoke with reporters about record high gas prices, the state of the economy and the fate of the Republican Party in this year’s election.

Click here to listen to the interview.

NCCC TO AWARD DEGREES TO 323 STUDENTS SATURDAY

More than three hundred students will be receiving degrees at North Country Community College’s graduation ceremony this weekend.

J. Catherine Sutter will deliver the commencement address during ceremonies that begin at 11 a.m., Saturday at the Sparks Athletic Complex on the Saranac Lake campus.

Sutter attended NCCC and graduated in 1988 with an degree in Liberal Arts. She went on to receive several more degrees including a bachelor of science degree from Cornell and a masters in law from from American University’s Washington College of Law.

Sutter is currently employed by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. She has also recently joined the North Country Community College Foundation Board.

Also speaking at the ceremony will be NCCC President, Dr. Gail Rogers Rice; Board of Trustees Chairman John Friedlander; and Alumni President Tammy Lalonde. The presentation of the graduates to the Board of Trustees will be by Grand Marshal Jane Carpenter.

The number of graduates to be awarded degrees this year will be 323, with the number of degrees and certificates received totaling 247 associate degrees and 81 certificates.

Handicapped parking will be reserved at the gymnasium complex for guests requiring special accommodations. Both the commencement and reception areas are handicapped accessible. A free shuttle service will run from the Science Building (Mulholland Hall) through the campus to the Sparks Athletic Complex, beginning at 10 a.m. 

After the ceremony, the same transportation will be available to bring people to the reception in the Connector.

FIRE REPORT

Lake Placid firefighters were called to Mt. Whitney Way at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday.  One truck and eight members responded and found a tree leaning against a power line, causing a small brush fire.  The fire department stood by until the Lake Placid Electric Department arrived on scene.  The fire was extinguished after the electrical hazard was removed.  Firefighters returned to the fire station by 5:02 p.m.