Officials: State can\'t afford land
Some lawmakers call for a moratorium on buying park property
By MAURY THOMPSON
thompson@poststar.com
With the economy in crisis, the state cannot afford its appetite for pristine forest land, which it has been buying steadily for decades, say some state legislators who represent the Adirondack Park.
\"I mean these things may be good to do, but they could wait until the economy is better,\" said state Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, who has called for a temporary moratorium on the state purchase of land in the Adirondack Park.
Forgoing land purchases would take only a nibble out of the state\'s estimated $12.5 billion deficit.
The state budgeted $66.6 million for land acquisitions statewide in the fiscal year that ends March 31, 2009, of which $35 million was spent as of Nov. 1, according to the state Division of the Budget.
Little said every opportunity to reduce spending should be looked at, and delaying land purchases would be preferable to cutting state jobs.
Some environmentalists don\'t see Little\'s proposal as a serious threat to conservation efforts.
\"That\'s kind of old news. That really hasn\'t gotten much traction the last several years,\" said Michael Carr, executive director of the Adirondack chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Nevertheless, The Adirondack Council, another Adirondack environmental organization, is conducting a public relations campaign at Eastern Mountain Sports clothing stores in the coming weeks to call attention to state funding for land acquisition and other environmental projects.
Store displays will direct people to the Adirondack Council Web site, where information will be available about lobbying efforts, said John Sheehan, a spokesman for the environmental organization.
\"EMS is not a lobbying organization and doesn\'t want to engage in grass-roots campaigning, but they did want a public education effort on what\'s at stake and give people the opportunity to participate in the public debate if they so choose,\" Sheehan said.
Land acquisition and other environmental projects are funded from the state Environmental Protection Fund, which gets its revenues from a real estate tax.
The fund also pays for projects such as landfill closures and recycling initiatives that would otherwise fall onto the local property tax, Sheehan said.
The state in recent years has redirected some protection fund revenues to the general fund.
Little\'s proposal could take an even larger portion for other uses.
State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, said he supports a moratorium, and would go further and suggest a statewide temporary moratorium on buying land and conservation easements.
\"From an economic perspective, at this point in time it makes all the sense in the world, as we\'re trying to deal with significant deficits, to put a moratorium on state purchases of land, and I would go throughout the whole state,\" he said.
Local government officials in the Adirondacks for years have objected to the state\'s steadily increasing purchases of forest land.
\"And so in the last 150 years, the state has acquired outright in fee 2.7 million acres -- and that\'s (the equivalent of) more than 40 percent of the state of Connecticut,\" said Warren County Board of Supervisors Chairman Fred Monroe.
In the last 10 or 12 years, the state has bought about 300,000 acres of forest land in the Adirondacks and conservation easements on about 700,000 acres, he said.
Conservation easements typically limit development on forest land, but allow other activities such as logging.
Logging is prohibited on state-owned land in the Adirondack Park.
Local government officials say the state has stymied the region\'s economy by buying up land and shutting off all possibility of development, whether logging, housing or anything else.
Environmental groups say state land purchases protect the region\'s biodiversity, and the wilderness character of the Adirondacks provides opportunities for outdoor tourism.
But even some state legislators say the chances of halting state land purchases are slim.
Efforts might be more productively focused on gaining support for a constitutional amendment to allow logging on some state-owned forest land, in areas where logging would not threaten the environment, said Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward, R-Willsboro.
Logging would provide revenues to the state and support jobs in the forest products industry.
Griffo, the senator from Rome, said he is considering proposing legislation that would limit the percentage of land the state could own in any given municipality.
Griffo said he had not yet decided what percentage would be appropriate for the state to own.
\"I think any time you go over 50 percent, that\'s kind of troublesome. ... So I don\'t know what that percentage would be,\" he said. \"And I know there are some extenuating circumstances. Some may be in particularly sensitive areas and there may be legitimate reasons.\"
Monroe said the state\'s fiscal crisis bolsters the case for a moratorium.
A temporary moratorium on land acquisition could affect key local projects, such as the expected state purchase of 1,400 acres around Berry Pond, the headwaters of West Brook, a stream that feeds into Lake George, said Walter Lender, executive director of The Lake George Association, an environmental group.
The Lake George Land Conservancy bought the Berry Pond tract with the expectation of selling it to the state.
\"If the state is not going to make any more purchases for a while, it will affect the amount of protection we can do around Lake George, and I really don\'t want to see that happen,\" Lender said.
A moratorium on state land purchases could hurt municipalities if nonprofit organizations holding onto forest land to sell it to the state stopped paying local property taxes, said Sheehan, of the Adirondack Council.
As a good will gesture, tax-exempt conservation groups often pay local property taxes even though they are not required to.
Carr, of The Nature Conservancy, said there is broad support nationwide for conservation efforts despite the poor economy.
According to a recent New York Times editorial, 62 of 87 open space public referendums around the country passed on Nov. 4, with voters approving $7.3 billion in new spending for parks and open space projects.
\"So the public, nationwide, seeks additional open space and is supporting it in the voting booth,\" Carr said.
