Public Comments to APA Are Needed Now to Protect the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area and Local Rural Quality of Life!
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) has announced that it is accepting public comments on the application by Barton Mines, LLC (Barton) to expand its mountaintop mining operations at the Ruby Mountain Mine in the Town of Johnsburg, Warren County, adjacent to the Siamese Ponds Wilderness. This massive expansion of mining operation unfairly intrudes on the quality of life of local residents and businesses with noise from 24-hour-a-day mining and industrial processing activities, dust blowing off of the property, and visual degradation of the area with a towering and growing debris pile from mine tailings. The APA has not fully considered these major negative impacts.
This is the only mountaintop mining operation in the Adirondack Park. The APA is giving the public short shrift to comment on such a major project, taking comments for a mere 15 days, from September 25 until October 10, 2024. The application is massive, which puts the public at a disadvantage to review and prepare comment. In fact, Barton’s application is so large that APA had to break it into sections in order for the public to be able to download it from APA’s website.
Mountaintop operations at Barton’s Ruby Mountain Mine.
By letter dated September 24, 2024, available here, Protect the Adirondacks requested that APA provide a 60-day public comment period due to the large scope and complexity of the project as well as the significant degree of public interest and opposition. Apart from the large size of the application and its complexity, Barton has submitted additional voluminous materials in response to APA’s July 16, 2024 Notice of Incomplete Application. That material was not made available until late September. It is unrealistic to expect interested parties to thoroughly review these most recent submissions, formulate comments, and potentially obtain expert opinions on this technically complex project in such a short time. In our view, the minimum public comment period on a project of this magnitude, which has such an array of significant environmental impacts, is 60 days, and we have therefore urged APA to extend the deadline for public comment to November 25, 2024.
PROTECT’s letter also protests APA staff’s rush to judgment on whether substantive and significant issues will be raised during the public comment period requiring an adjudicatory hearing on the Barton application. PROTECT and others have previously submitted expert reports identifying substantive and significant omissions and flaws in Barton’s application, including the failure of Barton’s visual impacts analysis to full consider offsite impacts to places such as Moxham Mountain Trail in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest.
A scar on the landscape. Barton’s mountaintop operations are visible from the Moxham Mountain trail in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest.
Nevertheless, an email from APA staff to Barton’s representatives obtained by PROTECT pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law, states that “We plan to present this project to the Agency Board at their November meeting, which is scheduled for November 14, 2024.” Apart from severely truncating the opportunity for public review and comment, APA’s needlessly hasty schedule assumes that an adjudicatory hearing will not be held on this major project application, despite the array of expert reports submitted by PROTECT and others taking issue with Barton’s assumptions and projections and identifying significant flaws and omissions in the application.
The proximity of Barton Mine’s operations to Thirteenth Lake and the Siamese Ponds Wilderness.
PROTECT’s letter objects to this apparent prejudgment by APA staff that no substantive and significant issues have been raised or will be raised during the public comment period requiring an adjudicatory hearing on the Barton Project application. As PROTECT’s letter points out, the decision on whether to hold an adjudicatory hearing is the sole province of the APA Board and should be made only after the Board engages in a thorough and balanced evaluation of the issues raised during the public comment period and review of the regulatory criteria for holding an adjudicatory hearing.
We believe that there are substantive and significant issues that require denial of the application through an adjudicatory hearing. One of our primary concerns is the expansion’s noise, visual and other industrial impacts on the Siamese Ponds Wilderness that shares a boundary line with the mine. The proposal involves expanding operations into the critical environmental area (CEA) adjacent to the Wilderness. The mine will expand into the CEA by 26.1 acres and will involve cutting down 16,678 trees in the CEA. The mine boundary will become as close as 225.5 feet to the Wilderness area, and will be 336.6 feet from the Wilderness area for much of the northern boundary line.
APA map showing boundary line between Siamese Ponds Wilderness and the mine that will expanded even closer to the Wilderness.
Location of Barton’s operations in relation to Siamese Ponds Wilderness. Base map from APA.
We are also concerned about the impacts of the dust blowing off of the mountaintop where mining operations are taking place.
Dust blowing off of the top of the mountain where mining operations take place.
Submit Your Public Comment Today
Public comments are due by October 10, 2024.
To send an automatic email, see below.
When you send a letter or email include Please include “Project 2021-0245; Barton Mines, LLC; Corrie Magee” in the subject line to ensure your comments are routed properly.
Please send letters to:
Corrie Magee
NYSAPA
PO Box 99
Ray Brook, NY 12977
Or, the public can post a comment on this project by clicking here: send a comment to APA online here
By email: RPcomments@apa.ny.gov
Talking Points for Public Comments to APA on the Barton Mines application:
1. The noise and visual impacts from the expanded mine on the community and on the Siamese Ponds Wilderness and other areas of the Forest Preserve are unacceptable. The mine should not be allowed to expand into the critical environmental area (CEA) by 26.1 acres, or be allowed to cut down 16,678 trees in the CEA. The CEA is supposed to be a legal buffer to protect the designated Wilderness Area. The mine boundary should be kept out of the CEA adjacent to the Wilderness area.
2. The project will have undue impacts on Park resources because Barton is proposing no mitigation whatsoever for noise impacts, despite numerous complaints from neighboring homeowners about current noise levels.
3. Round the clock 24-hour-a-day mining and processing operations should not be allowed.
4. The expansion of the mine tailings waste pile height by 100 feet will make the pile larger than some peaks in the Adirondacks and Barton has no viable way to revegetate this massive pile. As a result, it will leave a permanent scar on the Adirondack Park. In addition, the waste pile is unlawful and should be subject to Part 360 permit requirements.
5. The project will have undue air quality, scenic and aesthetic impacts because Barton’s dust suppression efforts have been unsuccessful and the company is proposing no new dust mitigation measures.
6. Although the mine expansion will result in a tripling of heavy-duty truck trips, the continued operation of multiple sources of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions, and the clear-cutting of approximately 36 acres of forest, Barton has failed to provide any analysis of the climate change impacts of these actions.
7. Independent experts provided information on substantive deficiencies in the Barton Mines application, which the APA ignored and failed to take into account.
8. Barton’s application for an expansion should be denied. Please hold an adjudicatory hearing to deny this application.
Submit an Automatic Email Public Comment Today
By filling out the form below you can send and automatic email to the APA:
Thank you very much for your help to protect the Adirondack Park and the Forest Preserve.
