The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, released a 4-2 decision today in favor of Protect the Adirondacks, a preservation group in the Adirondack Park. The decision upheld the “forever wild” clause of the state constitution, especially as it regards the construction of trails and the amount of timber taken when a trail is cut.
The issue centers around a series of snowmobile trails and the plan to cut them created by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Park Agency. The supreme court of the state upheld the APA and DEC’s plan, but the Appeals Court overturned it, granting the win Protect the Adirondacks.
In the plan, “Management Guidance: Snowmobile Trail Siting, Construction and Maintenance on Forest Preserve Land in the Adirondack Park,” the organizations planned for a series of Class II trails that can be used by snowmobiles and for nonmotorized activities such as cross-country skiing or hiking, according to the court's summary of the proceedings.
In the majority opinion, Associate Judge Jenny Rivera writes that Protect the Adirondacks held that the trail cutting was impermissible because it required cutting and destruction of a substantial amount of timber, and created an “artificial man-made setting” in the Forest Preserve, a forever wild section of the forest.
The Appellate Court seemed to say that the trails themselves are not at issue, that trails can be created inside Adirondack Park Forest Preserve, but the amount of tree cutting was the issue, especially in areas where the trail would need to be cut to at least 12 feet wide.
“The Appellate Division held that the trail construction constitutes an unconstitutional destruction of timber...[whereas] the dissent would have held that the construction of the Class II trails ‘effect a reasoned balance between protecting the Forest Preserve and allowing year-round access’,” Rivera wrote for the majority.
“[W]e conclude that the planned 27 miles of snowmobile trails may not be built without constitutional amendment,” the majority wrote. “If the people of the State of New York decide that these Class II community connector trails are sufficiently beneficial, despite their impact on the Forest Preserve, then that determination may be realized through constitutional amendment.”
However, Associate Judge Leslie Stein, writing in the minority, says, “The majority misreads our State Constitution to arrive at the mistaken conclusion that the people of this State must undertake the arduous process of constitutional amendment to enable a long-standing public use of the Preserve to continue in a manner that is both safe for, and designed to protect, the Preserve’s most sensitive resources.”
She later writes, that the “substantial extent” or “material degree” standard of what can or cannot be done in the Park “cannot be reduced to merely an exercise in tree counting, but requires consideration of the scope, nature, purpose and impact of the project on the affected area and on the Forest Preserve as a whole.”
She argues that the constitution which protects the taking of timber from the Park surely meant trees large enough to make sale-able wood, not every bush and small tree, and so Protect the Adirondack's approximation of lost trees is overexaggerated since they counted all plants as "timber."
She also said that the plan created by the DEC and APA looked at ways to mitigate the number of timber-sized trees taken and discouraged trails through the most sensitive areas, she says.
Her argument did not sway her fellow judges.
“Protect the Adirondacks and conservationists across New York are delighted with the Court of Appeals decision. Forever wild means a lot more today, which will ensure that the Adirondacks are truly protected for the generations to come,” said Chuck Clusen, Chair of Protect the Adirondacks said in a statement.