Public Comments to APA Are Needed Now to Protect the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area and Local Rural Quality of Life!
Submit comment letters or emails through November 6th!
The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) is accepting public comments until November 6th 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 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 and must hear from all who are concerned.
This is the only mountaintop mining operation in the Adirondack Park. 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. Submit your letter by November 6, 2024. You can send in an automatic email by filling out the form below.
Mountaintop operations at Barton’s Ruby Mountain Mine.
This is a massive project and the APA staff is rushing to judgment. Many substantive and significant issues have been raised so far during the public comment period, which should require 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 fully consider offsite impacts to places such as Moxham Mountain Trail in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest. Click here to read PROTECT’s latest filing.
A scar on the landscape. Barton’s mountaintop mining operations are visible from the Moxham Mountain trail in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest.
Barton Mine’s borders the Siamese Ponds Wilderness on two sides, including Thirteenth Lake pictured above.
PROTECT believes 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.
This map shows the Critical Environmental Area (CEA) that legally buffers the Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area. Barton Mines is seeking to push mining activities into the buffer zone.
We are also concerned about the impacts of the dust blowing off of the mountaintop where mining operations are taking place. Residents and businesses in the area complain about the homes and properties being coated with a white residue from Barton Mine’s massive debris pile. To date, Barton Mines has failed to control dust from its massive debris pile.
Dust blowing off of the top of Ruby mountain where Barton Mines mining operations take place.
Submit Your Public Comment Today
Public comments are due by November 6, 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.
