2025: A look ahead at Protect the Adirondacks’ priorities

In 2025, Protect the Adirondacks will continue our work of advocating for the State to ramp up its land protection efforts, which has fallen to all-time low in the Adirondacks and across the State. We will also work to defend and protect the Forest Preserve through our advocacy, independent oversight, grassroots organizing, research, education and legal action when needed. The items below are our priorities for 2025 for projects and programs that will help to protect and enhance the natural resources and human communities of the Adirondack Park. This is not a complete list as new issues are sure to arise throughout the year. With your support, PROTECT will be ready to react to and intervene in the issues that arise that we did not anticipate or predict.

Claudia Braymer takes the lead in guiding PROTECT forward

After more than 35 years of Adirondack Park environmental conservation and advocacy, Peter Bauer is passing the baton to Claudia Braymer as part of the organization’s leadership transition plan. She starts as Executive Director on January 1, 2025. Claudia, who has been Deputy Director since February 2023, has long held a strong belief in protecting the Adirondacks from overdevelopment and mismanagement to keep its natural and human communities vibrant for current and future generations. She is an attorney who has worked on environmental cases across New York State and was co-counsel on Protect the Adirondacks’ successful lawsuit that upheld and defended the Forever Wild clause in the State Constitution in 2021. She and her family have hiked, paddled, camped and cross country skied throughout the Adirondacks.

Advocacy

This year, PROTECT will continue to push the State to use Bond Act funding for open space land protection projects in the Adirondacks to add new land to the Forest Preserve, including state acquisition of Whitney Park and other lands that become available (including Camp Sabbatis on Low’s Lake). Open space conservation across the State is necessary to reach the 30 by 30 goal and is a critical piece of New York’s Climate Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

During the Fiscal Year 2026 New York State Budget process, PROTECT will advocate for funding for management of the Forest Preserve and for various Adirondack Park initiatives. We are working with other Adirondack organizations on budget requests for the Adirondacks (read our group budget letter to Governor Hochul here). Along with other Adirondack environmental groups, we are hosting the Adirondack Park Environmental Lobby Day (Monday, February 24, 2025) for volunteers and activities to speak with Legislators and staff about needed funding for vital programs including land protection, invasives species control, Forest Preserve Stewardship and visitor centers (e.g., SUNY ESF Newcomb Visitors Interpretive Center, Paul Smith’s College Visitors Interpretive Center), new “carrying capacity” studies for Adirondack lakes, the Survey of Climate Change and Adirondack Lakes Ecosystems (SCALE) study, and support for important Adirondack institutions, such as the Adirondack North Country Association’s Adirondack Diversity Initiative, Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute, SUNY’s Environmental Science and Forestry’s Timbuctoo Summer Climate and Career Institute, Cornell’s New York State Hemlock Initiative, and the Adirondack Experience.

PROTECT is also working with dozens of other environmental organizations from across New York State for EPF Lobby Day to advocate for the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) to be increased from $400 million to $500 million. Funding in the EPF is the main source of funding for stewardship of public lands within the Adirondack Park and for the environmentally sound economic development of communities in the Park. We are pushed for the EPF to include $50 million for open space land protection, $10 million for the Land Trust Alliance, and at least $12 million for Adirondack and Catskill Park visitor safety and wilderness protection projects. Click here to read the Statewide budget request letter.

In the 2025 Legislative session, PROTECT will support the following bills: 1) a new wolf protection bill (click here for background info) that will require large canids to be DNA tested to determine if the animals are wolves, 2) septic system inspections to require inspections and upgrades as necessary at the time of transfer of property with a septic system (click here for background info), 3) a Forest Tax Law amendment to incentivize keeping private forests “forever wild” for carbon sequestration and storage purposes, 4) a Planes, Trains and Boats bill to encourage electrification of these fleets, and 5) updates to the Adirondack Park Agency act to include new provisions for addressing the problems of climate change and affordable housing. We expect the bill to amend the Adirondack Park Agency Act will require a multi-year effort to achieve passage.

Wolves that migrate to New York State deserve additional protections under the law.

Independent Public Oversight

Protect the Adirondacks places great importance on its role as a watchdog over the management and regulation of the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve by state agencies and local governments. This is work that requires a lot of time and effort, but is necessary to hold accountable those in power as we push for transparency in public administration of New York’s environmental laws. Our Public Comments page lists dozens of policy review letters that we submit each year.

The Adirondack Park Agency is located in Ray Brook, NY, and under law is the lead agency for planning in the Adirondack Park.

Adirondack Park Agency: PROTECT will continue its independent public oversight of the Adirondack Park Agency’s (APA) administration of the Land Use and Development Plan and oversight of the management of the Forest Preserve.

In the fall of 2024, APA released proposed amendments to the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (SLMP). Many of the proposed changes have the potential to weaken the SLMP’s protections of the Forest Preserve, especially in Wilderness Areas. We are particularly concerned about the discretion being given to DEC to allow motor vehicles or Other Power Drive Motor Vehicles (OPDMDs) on the Forest Preserve without abiding by the limitations in the current SLMP. APA’s proposed SLMP amendments are yet another indicator that APA has lost focus on its mission to protect the Park’s natural resources. We submitted an extensive comment letter to APA and worked with other Adirondack groups to submit a joint letter to APA and to the Governor. We will continue advocating for APA to drop its ill-advised changes that will weaken the SLMP.

OPDMDs include motor vehicles, golf carts, Segways and All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). Photo array from Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

As mentioned above, PROTECT will also work on efforts to update and revise the APA Act. The APA is at the weakest point in its 50-year history, suffering from poor leadership, and casual compliance with state environmental laws. PROTECT will advocate for new APA Board members, who are dedicated to impartially upholding the law, and seek to make the APA once again into the lead agency in the Adirondack Park for park-wide planning. PROTECT will also push for greater transparency at the APA form publishing permits, meeting minutes, and providing historic materials.

We will push for APA to adopt regulations, similar to DEC’s new proposed regulations, that will implement the Freshwater Wetlands Act amendments adopted in 2022.

Department of Environmental Conservation: PROTECT will continue its independent public oversight of DEC’s management of the Forest Preserve as well as land acquisition and wildlife management.

DEC is updating the State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP), which must be updated and submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2025 to secure continued federal funding for wildlife conservation. The first step in the SWAP update is DEC’s preparation of a Species Status Assessment (“SSA”) for each species that is or may be imperiled in the State. PROTECT submitted comments on the draft SSAs prepared by DEC in 2024. PROTECT has focused on four mammal species (Canada lynx, cougar, moose and wolf) and four bird species (American three-toed woodpecker, bay-breasted warbler, Bicknell’s thrush, and red-headed woodpecker) that are either present in low or declining numbers in the Adirondack Park or that formerly had breeding populations in the Adirondacks but are now rare. PROTECT will urge DEC to provide increased protections for these at-risk species.

We plan to continue participating in various advisory committees or stakeholder committees that provide feedback to DEC. PROTECT will continue to participate on the Forest Preserve Advisory Committee (FPAC), which is mostly a forum for sharing information among DEC and the FPAC participants.

A section of the Gulf Brook Road. The mileage of roads that state agencies authorize in the Forest Preserve in upcoming Unit Management Plans will be carefully scrutinized.

A regular part of our watchdog work involves getting out into the Forest Preserve. In 2025, we’ll be monitoring various areas in the Forest Preserve, and check on the new trail under construction to Cascade and Porter mountains. This trail may be completed in 2025.

Projects Reviewed/Proposed by Other Agencies: We will continue to monitor the actions of local governments in the Adirondack Park and of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, the Department of Transportation, and the Lake George Park Commission.PROTECT is scrutinizing several proposed development projects in local review processes, including a new subdivision proposal in the Town of Lake Luzerne, and a large resort proposal in the Town of Cairo adjacent to the Windham-Blackhead Range Wilderness area of the Forest Preserve in the Catskill Park.

We will continue to monitor the Lake George Park Commission’s use of the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR EC to control invasive Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM). The scientific follow-up studies by the Lake George Association after chemical treatment in Lake George in 2024 are yielding important information. We urge lake associations and managers across the Park to develop robust lake management plans that include a variety of non-chemical tools to address the multitude of threats facing Adirondack lakes.

In 2024, Franklin County publicly proposed a 500-mile “multi-use” recreational trail system. During the County’s public comment period on its proposal, we organized with local leaders to assist them in pointing out numerous concerns with the proposed system that would create extensive new routes for off-road vehicles (“ORVs”) to use roads and trails throughout the County, including potentially on Forest Preserve lands. Franklin County has since said that it would remove ORV use on trails that lead into the Adirondack Park. However, that still leaves open the possibility for ORV use on public roads, which is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is that the use of larger ORVs, such as “side-by-sides” or “utility task vehicles,” are not allowed on public roads according to New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law. We will continue to educate the Franklin County Legislature on this topic and urge the County to scale back its proposal and ensure that it complies with applicable environmental and other laws.

Part of the proposed Franklin County multi-use trail

Legal Action

Protect the Adirondacks takes legal action when necessary, when we believe the law has been broken and all other efforts and remedies have been exhausted. We take every lawsuit that we’re involved with very seriously.

Our lawsuit, with other petitioners, challenging APA’s approval of a major marina expansion on Lower Saranac Lake, specifically APA’s decision that new covered dock structures in regulated wetlands did not require a wetlands permit, was partially dismissed. We will continue fighting this case in Supreme Court and anticipate appealing the adverse decision(s) to the Appellate Court early in 2025.

In 2023, PROTECT sued the DEC and APA over their decision to refurbish nearly one mile of a motor vehicle road in the southern High Peaks Wilderness Area. In September 2024, the Supreme Court, Albany County, granted a motion by APA to dismiss PROTECT’s complaint as time-barred. We have filed a notice of appeal of Supreme Court’s decision with the Appellate Division, Third Department. We have until April 2025 to perfect this appeal.

A section of the reconstituted East River Road in the High Peaks Wilderness during reconstruction work in the fall of 2021 by the DEC.

We will continue our 2024 lawsuit requesting that Supreme Court require DEC to conduct a mandated carrying capacity study for the waterbodies in the Saranac Chain of Lakes. The study, mandated by the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan and the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest Unit Management Plan, is necessary to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of visitor overuse of these water body, which is all the more important as APA has recently approved major expansions of a commercial marinas on Lower Saranac Lake and Lower Fish Creek Pond.

Research, Public Education and Grassroots Organizing

2025 will be the 28th year of the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program (ALAP), which is a partnership between Protect the Adirondacks and the Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College. ALAP has three primary objectives to: 1) collect long-term water quality data on individual lakes and ponds in the Adirondack Park; 2) provide long-term trend data on individual lakes and ponds for local residents, lake associations, property owners and local governments to help organize water quality protection efforts; and 3) assemble a profile of water quality conditions across the Adirondacks. ALAP has relied upon trained volunteers who collect water samples and information that is analyzed by the scientists at AWI. If you are interested in signing up to be a volunteer or to add a lake to the ALAP, go here to get more information before the 2025 sampling season begins.