The 43rd Edition of Adirondack Council’s State of the Park Report has been released October 8, 2024.
The Report is the Adirondack Council’s comprehensive annual assessment of environmental conditions, social issues and government actions for the largest park in the contiguous United States. Its current 43 editions serve as an almanac of important events and decisions in the Adirondacks, affecting generations of New York residents.
“The Adirondack Park had a good year in terms of water quality funding, a new draft of the State Wildlife Action Plan, approval of a Climate Superfund Act and significant improvements in river habitat for native trout,” said Adirondack Council Executive Director Raul J. Aguirre. “All of those wins will require additional action and collaboration in the coming months to achieve their intended goals.
“Even when we saw wins for the Adirondacks, such as the Governor doubling the amount of grant funding available to rural communities seeking to build or replace municipal wastewater treatment systems, there is work to do to see actual projects come to fruition in the North Country,” he said. “Facilitating positive outcomes on the ground from our successful advocacy efforts in Albany and Washington, DC is part of what we envision in the year ahead.”
“In addition, the state has a new draft of its Wildlife Action Plan that is designed to keep healthy wildlife populations intact,” Aguirre explained.
“Due for final adoption in 2025, the action plan aims to prevent rare and threatened species from becoming ‘endangered’ by addressing habitat-protection needs before species reach the brink of extinction. This will require the state to become more progressive in protecting lands and waters. The plan also includes the idea of conserving plants as part of a newly holistic approach to wildlife protection.”
Another part of the Adirondack habitat protection effort is succeeding with federal funding, he said. This effort focuses on the removal of no-longer-needed dams from rivers across the Adirondack Park to help native fish populations to recover.
During the Industrial Revolution, many of the Adirondack Park’s rivers were dammed and diverted to create hydro-power for factories, mills and electricity generation. Large numbers of those dams are still in place. Many are no longer needed.
Nearly all of them are barriers to fish passage, preventing the natural spawning of native fish, including trout and salmon. That requires expensive fisheries enhancement programs that monitor local conditions and stock non-native species to replace the missing natives.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Trout Unlimited are working to remove some of the most impactful derelict dams in the eastern Adirondacks.
The partners removed two dams from the Saranac River in the fall and winter of 2023, allowing trout and salmon from Lake Champlain to reach spawning areas near the Adirondack border for the first time in more than a century. USF&W and TU are restoring habitat in four rivers connecting Adirondack uplands to Lake Champlain.
“We are also awaiting action from Governor Kathy Hochul, whom we hope will sign the Climate Superfund Act,” he said. “The bill would generate funds for climate stabilization and prevention of damage to fundamental infrastructure, while also calling on climate polluters to pay a share of the clean-up costs. Requiring climate polluters to pay a portion of the bill is an effective way to discourage poor behavior when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.
“We don’t have any more time to waste in solving this problem,” he explained. “This summer we saw dozens of very destructive storms in the Adirondacks, including seven tornadoes in a single day and torrential rains that washed away state highways, again.”
You can find full the State of the Park Report here.
Established in 1975, the Adirondack Council is a privately funded, not-for-profit environmental advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring the ecological integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park.
The 9,300-square-mile Park is one of the largest intact temperate forest ecosystems left in the world and is home to about 123,000 New York residents in 130 rural communities.
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