Table of contents for September/October 2022 in Adirondack Explorer

Developer could house 14 boats on Lake Placid BY ZACHARY MATSON The developer behind a pair of controversial marina projects near Saranac Lake has legacy rights to build a pair of private boathouses totaling 7,656 square feet and 14 slips in Lake Placid’s remote Echo Bay. The combined project would be more than six times the size of current Adirondack boathouse standards. The Adirondack Park Agency in June denied a variance to a couple seeking to expand a boathouse to around 1,400 square feet, about 200 square feet more than the current standard, adopted in 2010. Yet, Pennsylvania-based developer Keith Stoltz retains state approval to build what would be one of the last boathouses of its size in the Adirondacks, because he installed dozens of steel caissons at the boathouse…

We walked along the dirt road through the woods, our heads and eyes down, looking for moose tracks. The previous morning a driver had spotted a 1-year-old moose in the road walking in circles and making no effort to evade the vehicle. One of the Shingle Shanty Preserve and Research Station landowners relayed that information to Steve Langdon, director of the 23-squaremile private preserve west of Long Lake. The next morning Langdon invited me to join him at the preserve to find the animal. It appeared as if it were infected by a brain worm, a parasitic worm that often grows up to 8 inches long and is as wide as a human hair or two. In moose, the worms migrate through their brains and spinal cords, causing neurological damage…

Travelers on Route 9 through Warren and Essex counties pass multiple signs for Word of Life Fellowship Inc. properties scattered along the shores of Schroon Lake. They may be unaware they are spotting evidence of a global enterprise, with satellites in 80 countries, a burgeoning balance sheet and a sustainable business model. After a one-mile boat ride from the west side of Schroon Lake, guests are greeted with a sign: “Welcome to Word of Life Island, Holding Forth the Word of Life, Phil. 2:16.” It’s a 50-acre island in the middle of a clear Adirondack lake for sports and recreation, fun and play, prayer and Bible study. The camp is in its 75th year and is a weeklong home to 2,500 youths each summer, as long as they abide by…

When we think of Adirondack history, we don’t ordinarily devote much thought to industry. That’s an urban thing, found in other parts of New York: Buffalo, Brooklyn, Corning—places like that. But if we ponder a little more thoughtfully, we quickly note that signs of the industrialization that transformed our continent over the last two centuries are omnipresent in the Adirondack Park. The relentless harvest of Adirondack trees for lumber and paper, the exploitation of iron and other minerals, acid precipitation, and, looming over all, rising temperatures—these are unavoidable reminders that while much of our park looks pretty good, we are far from being a pristine island of pre-industrial purity. The Adirondacks are linked in countless ways to the metropolitan centers of commerce and manufacturing. Henry Fair, a New York City-based…

Like their environments, the turtles of New York are sturdy and diverse. Some—painted turtles or spotted turtles—wear vibrant markings atop their shells. Others, like the large snapping turtle found in ponds, rivers and lakes, don camouflage. They, along with the out-of-state turtles that have colonized the area, share several similarities with the North Country. Besides their forest-green shells and resiliency, the turtles face a common threat: warming temperatures and habitat loss. Another human-made danger to the reptiles is street traffic. “Unfortunately, in many places turtles may be met with anthropogenic barriers such as development and roadways,” Lisa Pipino, biologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said. Leaving uninjured turtles in their natural habitats is an easy way to protect them, Pipino said. But should you see one near a…

When an updated assessment arrived at Anthony Siquier’s Town of Jay residence the small business owner was more than a little peeved. The assessed value on his single-family home on 2.5 acres climbed an acute angle upward to $337,000 from $189,000 in 2021 and $115,000 in 2020, according to property tax records. Tax bill impact: hundreds of dollars more annually in municipal and school district bills. “It was just totally ridiculous,” Siquier said. The town assessor said it was “based on what houses are selling for in Jay.” Two houses in proximity to Siquier’s Essex County home, a short drive on State Route 86 in the hamlet of Jay, had recently changed hands at eye popping prices, at least what would have been considered pricey as recently as three years…

The trail to Bennett, Middle and Murphy lakes is among the closest Adirondack trails to the State Capitol. This moderate hike along an old logging road passes all three lakes within 3.5 miles and can be hiked out-and-back from Creek Road in the town of Hope, or if using a second car, 8 miles to Pumpkin Hollow Road. From the Creek Road trailhead, hikers follow in the varied footsteps of history: the Revolutionary War veterans who first settled Hope around 1790 and created the road that the trail follows today; the employees of the 19th century paint mine, responsible for the red paint on local buildings; the subsistence farmers such as the Burgess family, whose 10 children would walk the road daily from Bennett Lake to the one-room schoolhouse;…

Earlier this year, New York state agreed to contribute $600 million toward the construction of a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. People differ on whether it’s a good use of taxpayer funds. Without wading into that debate, I will say this: if the state can spend $600 million on a football stadium, it can afford to buy—for far less money—one of the last sizable tracts of family-owned forestland in the Adirondacks. Whitney Park is a remarkable 36,000-acre estate west of Long Lake. Although it has a large summer home, a number of smaller buildings and miles of logging roads, the property remains largely wild and undeveloped. Since the early 1990s, the state’s Open Space Conservation Plan has listed it as a desirable acquisition. The current plan declares that Whitney…

Too much debt, spending already New York is addicted to spending and borrowing, and state taxpayers are drowning in debt, thanks to some of the highest taxes and fees in the nation and a financially devastating 9.1 percent inflation rate that shows no signs of abating. Now, the state wants to borrow and spend even more, as families find themselves forgoing simple necessities because they just don’t have enough money to pay for them. It’s a hard slap in the face when you consider that Albany increased the state budget from $177 billion to $220.5 billion in the past two years alone. Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Democrat colleagues in the Legislature are now promoting a $4.2 billion bond act that voters will decide on in November. It’s being trumpeted…

When New York voters step into the booth this November, the state will be asking them for authorization to borrow $4.2 billion for the Clean Water, Clean Air, Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act. Voters will have to make their decision on pure faith that the state will do what it promises with that money, which they—and their children—will be paying off for several decades. That’s because a clear record of what the state did with the $1.75 billion in environmental bond money authorized 26 years ago doesn’t exist. And no audit has been done of that spending. So the public can’t see what came of their vote. If people vote yes on the bond act—and historically that’s what New Yorkers do—you would think that the very least they should be…

To find out how the $1.75 billion of the Clean Air/Clean Water Bond Act of 1996 was spent, the Adirondack Explorer cast a wide net. Records requests went out in early February to agencies charged with dispersing the money, yielding a hodgepodge of different accounts. In some cases, agencies responded with nothing. The lead agency, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, was unable to produce itemizations of projects funded. The Explorer found some spending items were already in state management plans. For example, Lake Champlain had a water management plan identifying what could be done to improve its water quality. Projects not previously listed in management plans often went through a review process. A committee of state officials and legislators ranked these items for public comment on the DEC’s environmental…

Car doors slam as 10 women and two men gather in the parking lot near Elk Lake where Trail #119 leads to the southern route up Dix Mountain. They talk and laugh before grabbing tools from the pile on the ground—shovels, hoes, rakes, pick mattocks. The day’s goal is to fix drainage problems on this well-traveled trail. The day before, the crew dismantled a jumble of logs pressed against a bridge on the Hoffman Notch Trail and put a new railing on another bridge. While most people think of the 46ers as a peak-bagging club, the organization is responsible for maintenance on several trails in the Adirondacks and does other projects at the request of the Department of Environmental Conservation. They offer trail maintenance weekends throughout the summer and fall.…

The pied-billed grebe is New York’s only breeding grebe species. It is a brown-colored, small, diving waterbird. Compared to a mallard, it has less than half the weight and wingspan. Most of the time you hear this bird making its loud rhythmic wailing “kaow, kaow, kaow” long before you see it. A grebe is not a duck. Grebes have lobed toes, an adaptation they use to propel themselves underwater to get food, and a duck has webbed feet. Grebes have an ancient lineage and research has shown they are most closely related to flamingos. However, these species show no outward resemblance to each other. LISTEN The name pied-billed comes from the bird’s bicolored bill. It has a stout, light-colored bill with flattened sides and a black ring before the tip.…