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| 8/24/2009 12:52:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| The Great Sacandaga Lake shoreline in Broadalbin. |
| | Regulating district pictures ‘not used for enforcement’ | GREAT SACANDAGA LAKE - Amidst its quest to photograph all shorelines with public access in the Adirondack Park, the Adirondack Park Agency hasn't gotten to the Great Sacandaga Lake, but there are already photographs of its shoreline.
According to John Sheehan, director of communications for environmental group The Adirondack Council, the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District "has been taking shoreline pictures for a long time - the better part of a decade."
"It's because they are in charge of state land. The landowners uphill do not have the power to cut trees, but that hasn't stopped people," Sheehan continued.
Executive Director Glenn LaFave said the regulating district doesn't have a "database" of pictures, but does have "some."
"We have some photos having to do with erosion control and shoreline stabilization. We don't have a database of the whole shoreline," LaFave said, and noted the regulating district does not use them for enforcement.
"Erosion control and shoreline stabilization is work the regulating district does," he continued. "It's an operation, it's not part of the Access Permit System."
Sheehan said the regulating district has a substantial photographic database more than 1,000 pictures. He criticized the regulating district for its lack of enforcement, which was once "onerous," but is now "almost nonexistent."
"Some [of the pictures] indicate violations that still exist and have not been dealt with," he said.
"Back in the '70s and '80s, the folks who handed out shoreline permits would also issue annual fines to people who violated land-use laws, like having the wrong kind of dock or scalping the shoreline," Sheehan continued.
Now, he said, there are "no consequences," and people have the impression that the "rules aren't for everybody, or aren't enforced at all. That's been an issue up there."
He said he went out on the lake several years ago with former Executive Director Dick LaFever, and saw "obvious violations."
"People had built lagoons with earth moving equipment, or there were other cases where they had scalped the forest preserve and put a lawn in. It was pretty extraordinary," Sheehan said.
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Contact Heather Nellis at heather.nellis@recordernews.com.
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Keeping a record
APA compiling photographic database of park shorelines
Heather Nellis
Recorder News Staff
The Adirondack Park Agency is currently working to compile a photographic database of all shorelines within the Adirondack Park, prompting support from environmental groups and ire from lakefront property owners.
The pictures are mostly of shoreline vegetation in place, said APA spokesman Keith McKeever, and each picture will be stamped with a date and linked to geographic locations by coordinates in the agency's Geographic Information System. The agency intends to photograph all lakes with public access.
The database will serve as a "point of reference," while reviewing land-use law violations, McKeever said, to control shoreline erosion and stabilization.
"Sometimes people build things without permission and will say it was built before the agency act of 1973, or say they bought the property with the grass already cut," he said. "If someone isn't abiding by the law, the facts are represented as they were on a certain date."
The database will help the agency "do their job more efficiently," McKeever continued, and will help maintain water quality.
"It's scientifically proven the removal of shoreline vegetation and construction of impervious structures increases runoff," he said. "Grass doesn't have the same ability to curb runoff - it acts as an accelerant."
Some of the photographs have already been used in two specific land-use violation cases, said McKeever: The first when a Code Enforcement Officer from the town of Horicon, Warren County, was "having problems with people who are overzealous removing vegetation and disregarding the shoreline setback," he said.
The second instance occurred during a photograph session when APA officials "found someone clearly cut the shoreline from one end to another," McKeever said. "It was a blatant violation."
"This isn't an exercise in finding violations, though," he added.
Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board Chairman Fred Monroe, who lives on Loon Lake in Warren County, said his wife saw people taking pictures of their property from the lake last summer.
"We just found out that it was the APA," he said.
Monroe said he isn't worried that APA will find something against him, rather is concerned because "the people who founded this country were very concerned about general searches."
"You don't go searching every house in the neighborhood when you think one person is hiding something," he said. "This doesn't rise to that level, and even if it's technically legal, I have a serious problem with photographs that have no reasonable suspicion."
Monroe said lake residents are already insecure about their shoreline properties, and this is "very disconcerting."
"Things like this is why the founders of our country put the fourth amendment in place," he said.
"The public has to understand this is in their best interest," McKeever said.
John Sheehan, director of communications for environmental group The Adirondack Council, thinks it's an "unbelievably daunting task" the APA has undertaken, "given the sheer mileage of shoreline that exists in the park." But, "it's an important task to undertake."
Sheehan noted the APA Act of 1973 created a formula in which to determine how many trees can by cut by the shoreline before causing excess runoff.
"In order to make it fair to landowners, a certain percentage of trees are allowed to be cut. In order to enforce that, however, you have to know how many trees were there in the first place," he said.
Sheehan said the task has been particularly hard for the agency to enforce, as "developers have really abused the privilege to remove some trees to open views to the water."
With respect to landowner concerns, Sheehan said concerns that APA is acting like Big Brother "is kind of funny, actually."
"While the APA was the first of its kind in the country, it only has 72 people that work there, from the people who answer the phones to those who sweep up at night," he said. "Some newer agencies have an army of legal representation, up to 400,000 attorneys, while the APA only has a handful."
"Anyone can go onto Google Earth and see pictures taken from the sky. The presumption that anyone can't take a picture with a cell phone is pretty presumptuous," Sheehan said.
In the two years since the project's initiation, 33 different lake shores have been photographed so far, said McKeever, and the agency intends to photograph all lake shores with public access.
Four of the agency's six enforcement officers are responsible for taking the photographs. With approximately 11,000 lakes on forest preserve within the park, the agency has a long way to go.
In the mean time, Monroe said he expects to present the APA's project the review board at it's meeting in Johnsburg Sept. 30, where the group will potentially discuss legal action.
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Contact Heather Nellis at heather.nellis@recordernews.com.
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