Pennsylvania has a lot of low head dams that aren't always well marked and have a reputation for being deadly.
"The 175 mile-long Northway between Albany and Montreal, which Governor Nelson Rockefeller officially declared completed ten years later, brought that world much closer."
"For practical as well as political reasons, the last stretch to be completed was the piece that crossed the Forest Preserve between Ausable Chasm and Lake George, an accomplishment possible only after the passage of a constitutional referendum allowing the condemnation of 254 acres."
"As a newspaper editor, my father supported the constitutional amendment, arguing “We need trunk line highways connecting our communities with the great population areas to the north and south.”
"Roger Tubby, the publisher of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, led a committee organized to secure passage of the proposition."
If the state just followed the law in closing the road, it would have made their lives much easier.
"Eastern cougars once roamed every U.S. state east of the Mississippi, but it has been eight decades since the last confirmed sighting of the animal. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially declared the subspecies extinct and removed it from the U.S. endangered species list."
"The decision, announced Monday, is the result of years of deliberation. The agency conducted an extensive review of the eastern cougar in 2011, and recommended it be removed from the endangered and threatened species list in 2015, Reuters reported. The species, also known as pumas, are the genetic cousins of mountain lions in the Western United States and of Florida panthers, which are now found only in the Everglades."
There has previously been some drilling inside the monument but the last well stopped producing in 1992. Now, there are dozens of old, abandoned oil and gas wells still there. But Ruple is skeptical that drilling could start back up in any serious way.
“That area is just too inaccessible. The oil and gas potential is very low and the cost of getting any product out to a refinery and to market would be very high,” Ruple said.