Category: The Environment

The Lake George Park Commission had their only public meeting dedicated to receiving public comments on their proposed stream corridor rules yesterday and it got quite heated.

The rules as written do not address the main cause of lake pollution; road salt. These are from my written comments:

“The proposed regulations don’t accomplish what they set out to accomplish in so far as they exempt State, County and Town highway crews from cutting drainage ditches and clearing surface vegetation along their highway right of ways. Washington County Route 6 has a steep grade down the mountain until it reaches Huletts Landing.”

“During the summer of 2008 and in previous years, Washington County cut drainage ditches from their highway rights of way over our property directly into Fairy Creek. Their rationale was that this helped drainage along County Route 6. In doing so, all salt and petroleum runoff from the road, which studies show are very damaging to the lake, now go directly into Fairy Creek which in turn flows into Lake George. The Washington County highway workman in charge of this job in 2008 stated that the Lake George Park Commission had no jurisdiction over Washington County or any governmental entity and that the County was free to cut drainage ditches into any stream they wanted to. The proposed regulations do nothing to address this and place an unfair burden on private property owners. The proposed regulations, with a loophole this large, given the extent of public roads in the Lake George basin, are inequitable to private landowners and entirely negates the intent of the proposed regulations.”

What can we do? What must we do? We will release our ideas for improving water quality in Lake George tomorrow. Unlike these proposed rules, our ideas should gather support from all sides.

The Post Star has an almost live update from the Lake George Park Commission meeting where the proposed stream corridor rules are up for public comment.

Growing up we had a dog named Freckles who was a wonderful dog in all regards. He was loyal and friendly and just a great dog. At our home in NJ we kept him in our backyard and he was always on a chain where he could roam around half the backyard. Well we had a neighbor kid who would cut through our yard on the way home. He was the type of kid who had no friends and no one liked. As he went through the yard he would throw small stones at Freckles and annoy the dog and then run away. He did it intentionally and was real mean spirited about it. When confronted he would run. This went on for a few months.

Well one Sunday, they had a blessing of pets on the feast of St. Francis and I took the dog down to the church and he was so happy to get blessed and have some holy water sprinkled over him. He licked everyone and I never forgot what a nice day it was with all the other people with animals, etc. If you’ve ever gone to one of these, it’s quite an experience.

Well St. Francis must have smiled on Freckles that day because the very next week the dog’s daily torture of being hit by stones ended abruptly when his chain snapped as he was being hit by stones. Freckles, who never hurt anyone in his entire life, went after that kid like a lightening bolt. I will phrase this as kindly as I can. I witnessed first hand, a dog clamp on to an ass’s ass and that put an end to the stone throwing. Even St. Francis would have smiled.

The moral of the story: when you throw stones – sometimes you get what you deserve.

You will remember that we worked almost two years with the Lake George Association to clean up the mouth of Foster Brook. This was at no cost to anyone and the LGA was going to pick up all expenses. Their representative spoke to the HLPOCA at the July 4th meeting.

When the project didn’t start in the fall. I emailed the LGA, and this was part of the response I got back.

“As per Foster Dredging- the permit has not been issued yet. The Park Commission took some time to respond, they said there was no issue with the permit application and it followed what was outlined in the Environmental Impact Statement. There has been a delay due to some comments from the Waterkeeper. DEC is addressing them and should issued later this fall. Another issue is that DEC will not allow any dredging to take place after Oct 1st. The earliest we can do it is May 1st …”

(The dates of May 1st thru Oct 1st are problematic because of the issues with increased traffic on the road and the dock being occupied but we will try to work through these also. So the Lake George Waterkeeper, has in part, (the LGA is also trying to raise the funds in a down economy) halted this project for at least one year and maybe more with their opposition.)

So I emailed the Waterkeeper at the time and asked for their objections. I never heard back but found their objections on their website and published this post.

What I ask today is that you make a distinction in your mind between environmental groups that want to help the environment and groups that are simply interested in “throwing stones.” All environment groups working in the Lake George area are not equal.

The Lake George Association is the oldest environmental organization on the Lake. They were willing to fund two projects in Huletts totaling almost $100,000 last year and worked to make it happen.

The Lake George Waterkeeper likes to object to projects but when asked what projects it is in favor of, they refuse to respond. They have partnered with another extreme group, the Fund for Lake George, to support the new stream corridor regulations.

I wrote a letter to the Post Star this week where I attempted to point out the radical nature of these two groups. You should know what these groups are all about and what they are advocating. To read my letter click here.

It was only after my letter ran in the Post Star this week that I heard from the Waterkeeper. He finally told me that he will respond to my email from about four months ago. I hope he will go further. I hope he will begin to work with us and the LGA for the good of the community and cease his objections to the Foster Brook project that the LGA is willing and attempting to fund. Until we hear otherwise, I ask that you do not support the FUND for Lake George or the Waterkeeper.

If you want to support an environmental group that is interested in accomplishing something, the Lake George Association is the better choice.