$8M is allocated to Adirondacks, Catskills visitor safety, and wilderness in the state budget
By Gwendolyn Craig
$8 million is allocated to the Adirondacks, Catskills, and other areas for visitor safety and protection under the $220 billion state budget that was passed by legislators on Saturday.
The money will be drawn from the $400 million Environmental Protection Fund, which was increased by $100 Million from last year’s budget.
Cathy Pedler (Director of Advocacy for the Adirondack Mountain Club) stated that the funding will be used for trail safety and resiliency, education, trailhead infrastructure, and to implement the recommendations of the Adirondack Mountain Club. High Peaks Catskills Strategic Planning Advisory Groups. These two groups devised strategies to manage visitors in the face of an increase in outdoor activity.
While the funding was $2M less than the requested amount by environmental and local groups, many were happy with its outcome. Pedler expressed her delight. The funding was requested by ADK and 25 other conservation and outdoor recreation groups and municipalities.
The alliance of organizations included familiar voices like that of the Adirondack Council, The Nature Conservancy and ADK. It also included John Brown Lives! and Outdoor Afro, Hamilton County, as well as a variety of Catskills-area organizations.
In a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, Dec. 10,The coalition requested $10,000,000 to fund trail maintenance, building work, and education outreach on preparedness, safety and Leave No Trace education. This funding would also ensure that adequate temporary public bathrooms are available at trailheads as well as parking lots.
The budget also allocates $8 million to the state Department of Environmental Conservation in order to purchase a visitor management framework. This framework will be used to guide future management decisions and stewardship decisions in the Adirondack Parks. The High Peaks and Catskills advisory groups recommended this. The DEC indicated that it will likely seek proposals later in the year.
Protect the Adirondacks celebrates one of the most important and busiest budget seasons in Adirondacks history, said Peter Bauer (executive director of Protect the Adirondacks). We were pleased to see the Legislature highlight Adirondack Wilderness, Catskill Wilderness, and allocate $8 million to the EPF. These funds will be used to support pilot projects in Visitor Use Management Framework strategies. The framework is expected complement the actions DEC took last Year, which included the appointment of two coordinators for Adirondacks/Catskills in departments effort to manage sustainable usage.
Dave Gibson warned that this framework is still in its infancy. The Adirondack Park Agency and DEC have been working on it for two years, but it is still not complete. Gibson, Adirondack Wild Friends of the Forest Preserve’s managing partner, stated that part of the reason it has taken so long is the inability to find DEC and APA staff. Gibson stated that planners are often prevented by the lack of DEC and APA staff from taking on new initiatives. This has to change.
Additional funding for Adirondacks and environment
The $8.6million was in addition to $4 million that the DEC received for stewardship on newly acquired and existing state lands.
Other notable Adirondacks-related funding include $29 million for Adirondack Park Agencys headquarters and $2.1 million for Timbuctoo Summer Climate and Careers Institute. $500,000 for Adirondack lakes survey. Adirondack Architectural Heritage will manage Camp Santanoni Historic Area. $300,000 to Adirondack North Country Association will support the Adirondack Diversity Initiative.
The budget also includes $300,000.00 for Essex County and $150,000 to Hamilton County for continued hauling trash out the Adirondack Park.
Environmental groups from across the state and in the Adirondacks rejoiced at the inclusion, $4.2 billion Clean Water, Clean Air, Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act. The November vote will determine the borrowing.
The budget includes $500m for clean water infrastructure and 500 million for offshore wind development. It also establishes stronger protections to freshwater wetlands. The measure will include updating wetlands maps, and reducing the size limit for regulated wetlands.
State Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury) spoke out against the wetlands update last week as lawmakers rushed for the budget to be approved. Stec said that he agreed that the current regulations don’t work and that Adirondack Park homeowners are using wetlands regulations against each other. Stec stated that the new update makes an already difficult process even more restrictive.
Stec stated, “This is a solution seeking a problem.” It’s excessive regulation, I think.
The Nature Conservancy and other groups applauded this change, but they noted that wetlands provide crucial habitat for wildlife, as well as flood protection for communities.
The Open Space Institute applauded the $250 million budget to improve state parks and make them more inviting to the public. Kim Elliman, president, and CEO, pointed out that the state budget for the care and maintenance of more than 200 parks in the US was $29 million a decade ago.
Rural broadband is getting a new push
Hochul and lawmakers agreed that $1 billion would be invested in broadband and that ConnectALL would be funded. Hochuls office stated that the goal of the project is to provide affordable broadband access to millions of New Yorkers and boost economic growth.
The budget did not include a fee to lay high-speed fiber cable along state highways. Hochuls administration stated that this would lower the cost of high speed broadband deployment in order to expand access to communities upstate.
Stec stated that the fee had impeded rural broadband construction too long and should be eliminated.
Controversy
The public had to wait nine days for the Adirondacks budget to be approved. There were many obstacles to earlier passage, including resistance against Hochuls $600million state commitment as part of a $1.4B deal to finance a new stadium for Buffalo Bills football.
Republicans were critical of the budget negotiation process by Democratic governors and the record-breaking spending. Some Democrats also criticized the stadium deal.
Hochul, who is running for reelection in this year’s election, held a press conference Thursday without the leaders of the state Senate or Assembly majority to announce that the budget was completed, even though nothing had been passed.
Hochul said Thursday that the budget is a blueprint of the future. It is the embodiment of that dream. We are not only going to recover from all the ravages of pandemic, but we will also emerge stronger from it.
Will Barclay, Assembly Minority Leader, stated that the budget process is still as dysfunctional and broken as ever.
Barclay said in a press release that the final spending plan was excessively detailed, more than a full week late, and required an emergency extension to ensure state employees received their paychecks.
Several government watchdog groups agreed that there were flaws in the budget process. According to the New York Public Interest Research Group, the spending plan was almost entirely negotiated behind closed doors. This left the public and many lawmakers in the dark.
Environmental policy updates
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