State Purchases of More Former Finch Lands
The state has taken title to some smaller but interesting parcels as part of the Finch acquisition.
State Lands
Started to Do More Maps
With the Internet at home, it’s always a distraction from getting any work done on the blog. Sure, it’s nice for searching for a code scrap or a solution to a particular coding problem, or to download a data file, but the Internet is mostly a big distraction from reading or doing blogposts.
I’ve figured out an easy way to get block-group level American Community Survey data from the Census department. The Census Factfinder lacks block-group data. It’s called the National Historical Census Database. Not only does it have Census data up to 2012, it also has old data back to 1790. It might be interesting to do some historical mapping of things like population, especially when mapping urban growth patterns. The trick to using that data is to make sure you use the NH Census Shapefiles and not the TIGER/Line as otherwise the codes will not be able to be linked.
Without the Internet at home, I sure have a lot more time to do mapping and other activities.
Abandoning Existing Roads in Essex Chain Tract Makes No Sense
There are some wilderness advocates in our state that are calling for abandoning of existing roads in the Essex Chain tract to create an expanded Hudson Gorge Wilderness-area. Their argument is that by closing off these roads to all uses except foot traffic, it’s an opportunity to create yet another wilderness area in the Adirondacks – as if there was a shortage of wilderness areas.
The Proposals.
Here is the vision of the towns, where they propose to keep most of the existing roads open for low-speed motor vehicle travel.
The DEC in contrast is proposing to limit most of the existing dirt roads to hiking, mountain bikes, and snowmobiles, but also preserves access to the Hudson River, Cedar River, and Essex Tract within a 1/4 mile buffer. The buffer is designed so that people on the lakes can’t hear or see motor vehicles, which could compromise their experience.
This is the proposal that the wilderness advocates. Not much access to the lakes, and a banning of mountain bikes and snowmobiles from existing roads.
Why It’s Important to Protect Public Access.
Low-speed motor vehicle roads are an important to making the back-country accessible and widely available. The reality is relatively few people use our public wild spaces, with most people preferring to staying within the comfort of the cities and suburbs, with cable television, high speed internet, wash tubs, and flush toilets. It’s important to encourage public use of our lands, to create a constituency to protect these lands for future use.
Nobody is arguing for a widening or expansion of the Essex Chain tract roads. This would be constitutionally prohibited, and could detract from these wonderful lands. Nobody is arguing for blacktop pavement, flush toilets, water fountains, or developed campsites. In contrast, any use of these of these lands would be primitive, with facilities limited to dirt seasonal-use roads, outhouses, and designated campsites that have only natural-stone fireplaces. Even so-called roadside campsites, would have little more then a place to park a vehicle, a fire ring made of local stone and maybe an outhouse. Picnic tables are generally not allowed in wild forest areas.
Even with the existing dirt roads, the only people who would drive miles back into the woods would be people who don’t mind getting dirty, and want to go canoe, fish, hike, hunt, or camp in a wild setting. Fears of overuse are well overblown, because there are many other wild forest areas – with roads, campsites, trails, and minimal development – that get light use at best.
Is the Adirondack Park Overused?
A frequent claim by wilderness advocates, is that the Adirondack Park is overused, growing in popularity, and that our natural resources are endanger of overuse and destruction. An alternative claim is that while that many parts of the Adirondack Park is underused today, in the near future, the Adirondack Park will become more drastically more popular due to cities suffering from the impacts of climate change and pollution.
Both my personal observation, and that of the Adirondack State Land Master Pland seem to point in the opposite direction — the Adirondack Park is underused and unpopular except for a few selected areas that have gotten a lot of media attention and a lot of hype and publicity over the years.
This text is from the Adirondack State Land Master Plan, Guidelines for Management and Use:
Those areas classified as wild forest are generally less fragile, ecologically, than the wilderness and primitive areas. Because the resources of these areas can withstand more human impact, these areas should accommodate much of the future use of the Adirondack forest preserve. The scenic attributes and the variety of uses to which these areas lend themselves provide a challenge to the recreation planner. Within constitutional constraints, those types of outdoor recreation that afford enjoyment without destroying the wild forest character or natural resource quality should be encouraged. Many of these areas are under-utilized. For example the crescent of wild forest areas from Lewis County south and east through Old Forge, southern Hamilton and northern Fulton Counties and north and east to the Lake George vicinity can and should afford extensive outdoor recreation readily accessible from the primary east-west transportation and population axis of New York State.
The Department of Environmental Conservation, as ratified by Adirondack Park Agency, if of the opinion that most Wild Forests are underused in the Adirondack, and there is not a crisis demanding greater restrictions or the need to convert wild forest tracts over to wilderness.
When you go to the Bethlehem Library, they have a series of maps for the “Wilderness” areas of the Adirondack Park. But no such maps exist for the “Wild Forest” areas. Indeed, in many ways, the Wild Forest area, bar a few very popular (but small) camping areas and popular summits, the “Wild Forest” system is under-utilized, especially compared to the 1960s and 1970s, when camping and outdoor recreation of all sorts reached a pinnacle. Today, more people are choosing their Big Screen Television over outdoor pursuits.
Even on holiday weekends, you do not see crowds of people going to Adirondacks, except to certain specific locations that are particularly popular, like the most famous summits and waterways. But in most places, the wild forest and wilderness is pretty quiet, with only the occassional person passing through, with minimal conflict or interference between hikers.
Campgrounds are Gross
I got this book out of the library the other day titled, “The Best of Tent Camping: A guide for car campers who hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos” and thought it was a perfect read until I actually opened the book and found out it was a book expounding the virtues of state campgrounds, rather then back country and roadside locations for camping.
I once stayed in a state campground. It had to be the most miserable day in my life. I really don’t need to be told by some jackbooted thug how to operate my campsite, when I must turn down the music or dim the camp lights, or otherwise restrict what I want to do. I want shoot guns at midnight, then that should be my right.
Campgrounds are tightly packed locations, versus the typical 1/4 mile plus spacing between most roadside and backcountry campsites, where you are out of eyeshot and earshot of other campers, so you are pretty much free to do what you want without restriction of the government or annoyance of others.
If you need the kind of services that campgrounds you probably shouldn’t go up to woods. Especially if your tent camping, a developed campground just seems kind of silly and wasteful. You can always burn and pack out your garbage, and there are creeks to swim in to clean yourself out.
Keep the Government Off My Moose River Plains
Some of the Tea Party activist-types have been known to hold signs up that say “Keep the Government Off My Medicare”. Liberal commentators gets a kick out of that, by pointing out that Medicare is a government program and would not exist without the government. That is logical, but that is not the implied meaning — that government is something different then the public as a whole and functions the government is supposed to provide to the public.
Government doesn’t always serve the public interest. Indeed, in many cases it does not serve the public interest because of citizen apathy and because certain insiders have more power then average citizens. Laws are often written in smoke filled rooms, and are used to justify policies decades later that are not supported by the majority, but instead the small minority of special interest groups that originally got them passed.
Few examples could be clearer then Indian Lake Road, now closed at the bottom of the hill below Squaw Lake. This road went to Indian Lake prior to 2008, a beautiful wilderness lake that was great for paddling and fishing. It was closed due to Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan Act, and because the DEC wanted to “bank” 2.5 miles of Moose River Plains Road to use for then they acquired the Nature Conservancy parcels to add to the Vanderwhacker Wild Forest.
You can still walk those 2.5 miles. The road is in decent enough shape to allow you to bring a kayak back on wheels. And at least for now, you can still backpack in a campsite along the road. But then it makes Horn Lake and other places even farther back, and makes the back country even farther back. And it begs real questions: why is the government taking our public lands from us?
Tea Party folk are right to question why the government is taking things from us. the public that they should be providing things to and not taking away from us.
Philosophy of the Adirondack Park vs Allegheny National Forest
There are probably not two different public lands in the Northeastern United States that are more different then the Adirondack Park and the Allegheny National Forest.
The Adirondack Park’s Forest Preserve is one of the country’s largest wild forests, which basically is a wilderness area with very limited roads and motorized recreation or activity. Over half of the forest is totally free of motors of all sorts, from cars, trucks, boats, ATVs, and snowmobiles, to even generators used up at camp. No trees can ever be cut in Adirondack Forest Preserve, most uses and recreation are limited to current uses, and only are to become more restictive in the future. All use is strictly controlled by detailed regulations created by the State Department of Environmental Conservation and AdirondacK Park Agency, and public use is very restricted.
The Allegheny National Forest has extensive road system, is extensive logged, and used for oil and natural gas production. It offers extensive developed recreation, including dozens of campgrounds, several ATV trails, hundreds of miles of truck trails and other roads, boat launches, and basically any other use one can imagination for a public lands. It literally has more oil and gas wells then all other USDA-administer National Forests across the nation, combined. The land is largely on a grid, and where it’s not, the land has many roads following natural contours. Wilderness areas are a relatively small portion of the area.
Which philsopohy of land management is better?
Environmental purists would prefer the park, because the landscape is more prestine, and vastly less trambled by man. Man-made uses, such as roads and roadside-campsites are limited largely to near roads, and wilderness areas have limited trails, with only a few lean-tos and backcountry campsites.
Conservationists in many cases would prefer the Allegheny National Forest. They would note the diversity of land uses, and that while it’s a largely wild landscape, with people primarily coming to visit, it also provides our economy with valuable products, such as timber, oil and gas. Recreational activities like all-terrian vehicles, scenic driving, and camping are offered, far more extensively then in New York Forest Preserve.
I sometimes cringe when I look at the aerial photographs of Allegheny National Forest, or study the road maps. It looks like the entire ecosystem and forest is engineered. You can see the impacts of oil and gas drilling, and timber production — both which require a lot of roads, that don’t exist in Adirondack Park.
However, due to lack of roads, and lack of facilities in most of Adirondack Park, use of land is largely limited to areas within 5-10 miles of existing public roads. A lot of true backcountry is too far back to pratically expect most people to ever go. Some activities — like ATV riding on public lands is non-existent. Camping activities are fairly restricted to designated spots along roadsides, at state campgrounds, and certain back country locations.
While there is a lot to like about having some wilderness areas — like the Adirondack Park, when you review the regulations and policies the state has created for the goverence of the park, you have to wonder if they have gone too far. Some true wilderness areas are wonderful, but are there too much wilderness? Do restrictions on development of public lands leave too much restricted?
I don’t know. The Adirondack Park is a delight, a great wild space, but it does seem sometimes that are state goes too far in restricting public use, and walling off all the lands from ever having any timber cut, or any new facilities developed under public demand.