Critical Adirondack Environmental Issues

As of this writing, in Mid-February 2012, two groups of Adirondack environmental defenders, Adirondack Wild and Protect the Adirondacks!, are said to be preparing legal challenges to the January 20, 2012 vote by the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) board to permit the Adirondack Club and Resort (ACR) project to move ahead. The groups have not made public announcements to this effect but members have stated so in private conversations.
Below are links to some of the documents the groups submitted to the APA prior to the vote, presenting legal, policy, financial and environmental arguments against approving the project.
See our webpage "Adirondack Links" for statements and analysis after the project was approved.
The first document below is a very straightforward encyclopedic discussion of many issuess arguing against the project. The second is shorter and contains a very sharp and creative argument that the laws specifying protection for the Adirondack Park require the APA to protect the natural lands there first and foremost -- despite language in the APA Act that has been interpreted as prescribing a balancing judgement of conservation versus development.
The preamble to the Act presents a peculiar listing of all the priorities of the law, Adirondack Park Agency Act, and seems to allow an interpretation at odds with the group's legal argument. But for environmentalists that bold argument is important and hopeful.
Finally there is a "motion" submitted by the group Adirondack Wild that dissects the shortcomings of the hearing process and the weaknesses of the project as proposed, concluding that the vote should not take place and should await a far better factual record of scientific and other issues. Under a legal sleight of hand the motion was rejected prior to the Board's actual meeting, although it was discussed later here.