ADIRONDACK ENVIRONMENTALISTS
URGE ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY TO CALL A PUBLIC HEARING FOR PROPOSED
SARATOGA
COUNTY MOUNTAINTOP TOWERS
For
more information:
David H. Gibson
Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks
518-377-1452 (office) |
Jaime Ethier
Adirondack Council 518-432-1770 (office) |
Released, Wednesday, August 10, 2005
BALLSTON SPA, NY - Two advocacy
organizations for the Adirondacks today joined forces to call
on the Adirondack Park Agency to hold a formal public hearing
on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors' plan to erect three
mountaintop emergency radio towers around the Great Sacandaga
Lake.
The Park Agency is expected to vote on whether to hold such a
hearing at its August 11 and 12 monthly meeting.
"We believe there are sufficient questions and concerns
surrounding the impact of this project on the environment and
the local economy to merit a very thorough review by the Adirondack
Park Agency," said Adirondack Council Executive Director
Brian L. Houseal. "The only way to ensure that these questions
and concerns are addressed is through an adjudicatory public
hearing that allows both sides to present evidence and call witnesses."
"The APA needs to schedule a public hearing to give full
airing of the issues surrounding this controversial and complex
development proposal," said the Association's Executive
Director Dave Gibson. "The proposed tower infrastructure
and mountaintop roads pose potential undue adverse impacts to
the Park and contravene the Agency Tower Policy. Furthermore,
the emergency communication alternatives are complex, the public
interest is high and the information that would come from a hearing
is potentially very helpful to the APA in reaching a permit decision.
All of the criteria in the APA legislation for holding a public
hearing have been met or exceeded."
Among the concerns that must be addressed in a public hearing,
the groups listed
- All of the towers would require
clearing land on mountaintops and ridgelines, denuding forests
and wiping out rare and fragile wildlife habitat.
- Two of the three sites (Fraker
Mountain and Mt. Anthony) are owned by unwilling sellers and
the county has announced its intention to seize them through
eminent domain.
- The county appears to be duplicating
an emergency radio system that the State already intends to build,
using less visible technology, as part of the Statewide Wireless
Network.
- Two or more of the towers (at
least Mt. Anthony and Fraker Mountain) would be very visible
from public roadways and/or the lake. Mt. Anthony is visible
from I-87 (the Northway), including the Clifton Park rest area.
- Two or more of the sites (at
least Mt. Anthony and Fraker Mountain) would require extensive
tree-cutting and road construction through wetlands.
- Development of the third site,
at the summit of Lakeview Mountain, would facilitate a major
mountaintop subdivision by providing a roadway and electric lines
to a currently undeveloped site; the deed to the property was
amended after the county announced it wanted to buy it, adding
paper streets and lots to what is now a forest on Horse Hill
Road.
- The county's three proposed
towers will only increase coverage from about 30 percent of the
valley to less than 60 percent; it won't reach the 95 percent
coverage (population or geographic area) the county claims it
wants to achieve.
- The county's towers are linked
to one another but they don't form a loop; if one fails, they
all do.
- John Bergeron, owner of Mt.
Anthony and retired scientist for the General Electric Global
Research Lab, has designed a radio system for the Sacandaga Valley
that uses lower, roadside poles to host equipment rather than
mountaintop sites; his system may be more reliable (it's a loop
that can re-route calls around a damaged tower) and may provide
better coverage than the county's plan (up to 100 percent). This
is one reason why a public hearing is so important and necessary.
- Any tower on Mt. Anthony may
be especially vulnerable to lightning strikes; its rock contains
iron ore (magnetite) in high enough concentrations to register
as metal when scanned with a metal detector.
- Mt. Anthony has a surveyor's
triangle cut into the stone at the summit; the reports of State
Surveyor Verplanck Colvin to the Legislature indicate this was
his mark, made to indicate the site of the survey connecting
the first official maps of the Adirondack Mountains to the official
Hudson Valley survey; thus, the site is of historic significance
to the state. Prior to Colvin's survey, officials believed the
Catskills to be the state's tallest mountains; when state money
ran out, Colvin completed the survey at his own expense; his
reports helped persuade the Legislature to create the Adirondack
Forest Preserve (1885) and the Adirondack Park (1892).
In January, the Park Agency was
on the verge of calling for a formal public hearing on the project,
when the county voluntarily withdrew the plan to stop the review
before the deadline. The motion was tabled, but can be reconsidered
at the August meeting.
"Building roads up undeveloped mountains to achieve emergency
communication goals that may not require such a massive intrusion
on the Adirondack environment is unacceptable," Gibson stated.
"The State's own technology experts have shown that less
damaging alternative configurations are possible, but these alternatives
to the county's proposed tower installations have been inadequately
presented. A public hearing is clearly needed to bring all of
this information to light."
"We urge the Park Agency to do all it can to reduce the
visibility and ecological damage of any new radio tower system
it approves for the Great Sacandaga Lake," said Houseal.
"People come here to enjoy the peace and beauty of this
valley. There is very little commercial development. Most residential
development is concealed below the treetops. The valley's ridges
and mountaintops are pristine. Mountaintops are the last places
we ought to be encouraging development in the Park."
The Adirondack Council's mission is to ensure the ecological
integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park. Founded
in 1975, the Council is a privately funded not-for-profit organization
with 18,000 members. The Council carries out its mission through
research, education, advocacy and legal action.
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is a non-profit,
member supported organization founded in 1901 and dedicated to
sustaining the ecological integrity and mutual well being of
natural and human communities of the Adirondack Park. The Association's
Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna serves as an Adirondack
library and learning center.
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