October 3, 2024
Corrie Magee, Project Review Officer
NYS Adirondack Park Agency (APA)

P.O. Box 99
Ray Brook, NY 12977
David Plante, Regulatory Programs Director
NYS APA
P.O. Box 99 Ray Brook, NY 12977

Barton Mine, Towns of Johnsburg and Indian Lake, APA 2021-0245

Dear Ms. Magee and Mr. Plante,

The Barton Mine expansion proposal is one of the most technically complex and resource impactful private land use applications to come before the APA. The project as proposed touches directly on almost all of the Agency’s 37 Development Considerations relating to the potential for adverse impact upon the Park’s natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic, recreational and open space resources.

The application’s impacts concerning noise, visual aesthetics, air, water resources, geology, vegetative cover, topography, erosion and slippage, forest, open space, wildlife, and state land Forest Preserve resources have been raised in four Agency Notices of Incomplete Application (NIPA). We also add the additional greenhouse gas emission potential impacts required to be evaluated under the state’s Climate Act.

Following three years of project review, 4 NIPAs, alleged violations of existing permit conditions, and multiple complaints from neighbors about existing conditions, you inexplicably provide the public with just two weeks of formal comment opportunity ending on October 10.  Given the application’s length and limited response to repeated Agency requests for more information, a two-week comment period is unfair to the public and to the Agency’s ability to render a determination of no undue adverse impacts on areas classified Resource Management and Industrial Use.  As a matter of fairness and proper procedure for major applications, the Agency ought to extend the public comment period to 30 days at minimum. We ask that you do so.

Even after four Agency NIPAs there are remaining gaps in the information provided to APA by the applicant. With respect to fugitive dust and air quality, what parameters will the applicant measure and monitor, what specific thresholds will trigger responses, and what responses/actions will be specifically taken to mitigate impacts? These questions asked by the Agency still appear vaguely addressed after three years of project review. The same gaps in information are apparent for noise impacts. What specific engineering and process control means will be employed, triggered by which specific thresholds to reduce noise impacts? With respect to visual impacts, will the Agency  require the applicant to provide visual impact and noise information from points within the adjacent Siamese Ponds Wilderness and nearby residences on Garnet Hill? With respect to water quality impacts on area streams, there are also unresolved questions concerning avoidance or mitigation of impacts.

Given the wide scope of complex issues, apparent violations of prior permit conditions, complaints about actual conditions, and the overall controversy of actual and potential impacts upon adjacent private land and public Forest Preserve, there is little question that the APA in prior decades would have sent this project to an adjudicatory hearing, and thereby allow all parties expert testimony, followed by cross-examination before an impartial DEC administrative law judge. Failure to do so in this instance, and to render a final project determination based solely upon a hearing record would mark a low point in Agency environmental practice.  

Since 2022 neighbors of the applicant have gone to great length and expense to fill in the informational record and to hire and to provide expert information to the Agency about complex technical questions of the application in subject areas such as visual analysis, noise and fugitive dust. Were these issues and information sources adequately evaluated by the APA?  It is our impression that the Agency’s NIPAs and final notice of completed application signal limited attention to expert information provided by neighbors and stakeholders, information that could better allow the Agency to render an informed judgement and legally defensible final determination.

There are still about 50 days for the APA to decide to send this application to public hearing. Your decision to do so would be amply justified because the application may not meet statutory and regulatory criteria or standards, and because of the substantive, significant issues already raised by your own staff and by neighbors and other project stakeholders. We therefore ask that you increase the public comment period to 30 days and send the project to adjudication within the month. Thank you for considering our comments.

Sincerely,
David Gibson
Managing Partner
Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve
P.O. Box 9247
Niskayuna, New York 12309
www.adirondackwild.org
518-469-4081

Cc:  Barbara Rice, Executive Director
John Ernst, Chair
Sean Mahar, DEC Interim Commissioner
Ashley Dougherty, Assistant Secretary for Environment