The Adirondack Park under assault

Upstate New York's Adirondack Park is the largest state or federal park in the country, outside Alaska. It is protected as 'forever wild' by New York's constitution. The charter is fairly unambigious about the role of state government in environmental conservation.

*-Forest and wild life conservation are hereby declared to be policies of the state. -Article XIV, Section 3 (1)

*-The policy of the state shall be to conserve and protect its natural resources and scenic beauty -Article XIV, Section 3 (4)

*-The legislature, in implementing this policy, shall include adequate provision for the abatement of air and water pollution and of excessive and unnecessary noise, the protection of agricultural lands, wetlands and shorelines, and the development and regulation of water resources. The legislature shall further provide for the acquisition of lands and waters, including improvements thereon and any interest therein, outside the forest preserve counties, and the dedication of properties so acquired or now owned, which because of their natural beauty, wilderness character, or geological, ecological or historical significance, shall be preserved and administered for the use and enjoyment of the people. -ibid

Seems pretty straightforward. The state must protect the natural beauty, resources and other environmental factors of the Adirondack state park. That's its constitutional obligation.

The state has set up an administrative body called the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The stated goal of the APA is to develop long-range land use plans for both public and private lands within the boundary of the Park. Within the framework of the state constitution, it should go without saying.

However, the APA is now run primarily by appointees of long-serving Republican Gov. George Pataki. Under Pataki's APA, reckless development is starting to take hold in the supposedly constitutionally-protected 'forever wild' state park.

On Friday, the excellent North Country Public Radio aired a pair of pieces on a huge vacation home development in Tupper Lake, one of the largest municipalities in the Park (pop.: ~3900 ). One was a news piece about the problems with the development. The other was a commentary by the managing editor of The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, who raised questions about public funding and tax subsidies surrounding the project.

Both are well worth a listen. But the news piece was most interesting. Reporter Brian Mann interviewed APA officials who are so swamped with development permit applications that they can barely keep up. One official admitted that each project was looked at in a vacuum and that neither he, nor the commission, had any idea of the cumulative long-term environmental effects of this avalanche of development.

I wonder how that squares with the APA's mandate to to develop long-range land use plans for the Park.

Perhaps it's time for Park residents to take the APA to court. Contrary to the whinings of 'judicial activism' one might expect, this is specifically authorized in the state constitution (A violation of any of the provisions of this article may be restrained at the suit of the people -Article XIV, Section 5). Neither legislators nor the APA can ignore the constitution merely because of the dubious contention that "the people want it" (ie: they feel like it).

If big developers, Gov. Pataki or his APA don't like 'forever wild,' then they are free to try to change the state constitution. Until that happens, the state needs to control development in the Park very tightly, in accordance with its constitutional obligations.

In the interim, the APA should adopt a sort of 'Hippocratic' principle of development: first, do no harm. If the agency has no idea of the long-term environmental consequences of unfettered development, then maybe permits should be 'fettered' a little more slowly. The APA's primary obligation should be to the popularly approved constitution, not big developers.