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Interview with Brian Houseal, Adirondack Council
April 20th, 2010
Background: The state budget crisis gives New Yorkers an opportunity to learn more about how their tax dollars are spent. One controversial spending area concerns environmental programs. When Governor Paterson proposed to reduce the amount of money allocated for the environment, several environmental organizations responded critically. We interviewed Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, to learn exactly what he thinks the state ought to be doing with respect to the environment and why.
Empire Page: The Adirondack Council has criticized Governor Paterson’s proposed 2010-2011 state budget for cuts made to environmental programs and funds. However, in the context of a 9 billion deficit for the current fiscal year, shouldn’t you be pleased that the cuts weren't any greater?
Houseal: Actually, we are settling for less. In 2007, the
Legislature passed a bill calling for the EPF to reach $300 million by
2010. So far, neither the Governor nor either house has proposed more than
$222 million, or the same amount appropriated in 2009. The Governor has
proposed half that ($143 million).
In certain areas of environmental need, the
Governor seems to want us to settle for nothing. He is acting as if the
environment was a special interest -- like clean water and clean air were
luxuries we can live without until the economy improves.
The Environmental Protection Fund has never had enough
money in it to cover all, or even most, of the state's environmental
priorities. But it is all we have in terms of money for capital projects
-- big, one-time purchases -- that improve the health of our communities, parks,
wildlife and open spaces. It has been a long time since we spent the
last of the money that came from the Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act of
1996. We have a lot of catching up to do.
The EPF pays for landfill closure and capping; for
recycling faculties and transfer stations; and for new public lands, parks
and historic sites. Without state funding, small Adirondack communities
could never afford to handle these needs on their own.
Instead of adding money to the EPF when the economy was
booming, the Legislature and three governors have established a pattern of
raiding it when other accounts were low. The EPF has a rock-solid funding
source in the Real Estate Transfer Tax, which even this year will generate much
more than is needed to fully fund the EPF. The rest gets swallowed
into the General Fund, where it is spent on non-environmental programs.
Each year, it seems, more and more is diverted back into the General Fund before
it gets spent on the environment.
Since 2003, three governors and the Legislature have
raided $500 million from the EPF -- about one-third of all money ever
appropriated for the EPF since it was created in 1993. Now, Governor
Paterson is also proposing deep cuts to the staffs of the Adirondack Park Agency
and Department of Environmental Conservation. These cuts will close
visitors' centers, historic sites and public facilities needed to maintain the
tourism-based economy.
Timberland owners will not get the assistance they need
with forest management plans because there are too few state foresters.
Lost and injured hikers will have to take their chances with a smaller ranger
force. Damage to public lands and wildlife from illegal all-terrain
vehicle riding will only get worse. Poaching of fish and wildlife will go
unprosecuted. All of these poor fiscal decisions will harm both the
Adirondack environment and the economy that depends on it.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli just issued a report
confirming the economic benefits of public lands and environmental
protection. Both are a bargain. The EPF, even fully funded at
$300 million, would amount to less than 0.02 percent of the state's annual
budget.
There are two important facts that lawmakers tend to forget in times of
fiscal worry: every dollar spent on environmental protection comes back to us
five-fold in pubic benefits.
Empire Page: In press releases the Adirondack Council claims the state is cutting
$69 million out of the Environmental Protection Fund, but the
Governor's office points out that $58.9 of that cut reflects a
moratorium on land purchases. Is your group saying that despite the
state's desperate financial situation we should be spending the
public's tax dollars to take more property off the tax rolls?
Houseal: Adirondack land purchases don't take property off the tax rolls
and they don't harm the economy. Quite the reverse. The state pays
full local property taxes on every square inch of Forever Wild Forest Preserve
in the Adirondack Park and Catskill Park. Recently, this has resulted in
an instant boost to the local economy because the timber companies that formerly
owned them were eligible for significant property tax abatements.
Even when the state purchases only development rights
and/or recreational rights from private landowners (conservation easements), its
pays its full taxes on its share of the property's total value. If the
development rights and recreational rights amount to, say, 60 percent of a
tract's value, then the state pays full taxes on 60 percent of the full
assessment. Even if the timber company that owns the land itself is still
eligible for an abatement on the remaining 40 percent of the land's value, the
state is not eligible for any abatement. This too always boosts local
property tax revenue.
In the case of new Forest Preserve, new public lands
mean new places for hiking, fishing camping, hunting, boating, horseback riding
and other outdoor pursuits. New Forest Preserve always means new visitors
and new economic opportunities. Communities benefit further because these
new lands and waters generate both taxes and visitors without requiring much in
the way of local services -- aside from prosecution of timber rustlers and
wildlife poachers.
Since they were first approved for use in New York in
1983, conservation easements have been the state's most important cushion
against the shock of the collapse of the Adirondack timber industry. It
has allowed New Yorkers to prevent the subdivision and development of countless
acres of forest that helps to purify our water and air and shelters some of the
world's most spectacular natural wonders.
It hasn't been easy. Since the sale of Diamond
International's 100,000 acres to Atlanta-based land speculator Henry
Lassiter in 1988, all but one of the park's major timber companies and paper
makers have fled to the third world. Of the giants, only International
Paper still maintains its mill in the park (in Ticonderoga). During the
Pataki Administration, it sold all 260,000 acres of Adirondack forest to a New
Hampshire investment company.
Most of that acreage was protected from development by a
state conservation easement, but remains in timber production. A much
smaller portion was added to the park's public lands. Among the lasting
legacies of this deal is a permanent public forest that is among the most
accessible to people physical handicaps in the world. Dillon Park in Long
Lake provides wild forest lean-tos and fishing platforms.
In the near future, the EPF's land acquisition fund
would be called upon to complete the purchase of a conservation easement of
90,000 acres and to buy about 60,000 acres of new Forest Preserve from The
Nature Conservancy. In this deal for the former Finch, Pruyn & Co.
timberlands, the state would protect huge amounts of commercial forest,
while also preserving for posterity some of the most amazing lakes and
rivers in the Northeast -- all of which have been under lock and key for 125
years. For all that time, only those who purchased exclusive
leases from these companies had access to these gems. Soon, they will
be available to all.
They include the Hudson River Gorge and Blue Ledges
-- arguably the Grand Canyon of the East. The Essex Chain of Lakes,
OK Slip Falls, Boreas Ponds (in the High Peaks) several mountain summits
and wild portions of the Hudson, Indian, Cedar, Boreas and Rock
rivers. Adding these to the Forest Preserve would bring a stream of new
visitors to Essex County for years to come, while taking pressure off
of the eastern entrance of the High Peaks Wilderness near Lake Placid, by
providing another easy route into the heart of the state's grandest
mountain ranges.
Empire Page: You said "the
Legislature passed a bill calling for the EPF to reach $300 million by
2010." But the Governor’s budget office argues this was a target, never a legal
requirement. What’s your basis for
claiming it was more than a goal which the governor can and should set aside given exigent circumstances?
Houseal: A goal is exactly what it was -- a promise to try. That's why I wrote
that it "called for" the EPF to reach $300 million, and not "mandated" the EPF
to reach $300 million. I felt it was necessary to note that we have fallen
far short of that goal. We are more than willing to give lawmakers credit
for their work. We praised the Legislature loudly and publicly when it set
this goal. We don't want them to forget to reach it once the economy
improves. Back in 2007, then-Senator David Paterson supported a
$300-million EPF by FY 2009-10. He helped us pass that bill.
Still, we agree it would be unfair to hold the
Legislature or Governor to such a promise, given the current fiscal
situation. That is the basis of our willingness to accept a reduction of
25 percent or more, down to somewhere between the Assembly proposal of $170
million and the Senate plan of $220 million. It's no secret which end of
that spectrum we'd prefer. We believe it is money well
invested.
Please keep in mind that the Adirondack Council is
entirely privately funded. We neither solicit nor accept government
funding or taxpayer-supported donations of any kind. We publish each
October our State of the Park Report, which details what specific
public officials did to help or harm the park over the past year. We want
to maintain the ability to be brutally honest in this report, so we will allow
no government official to give us anything for which we would feel obliged to be
nicer to them than their record of public service would otherwise dictate.
We are entirely non-partisan.
We have twice been accidentally granted state Member
Item funds. Both were cases in which a group with a similar name was
performing a job for the state (building a park carousel; removing invasive
plants). Being better known, the check came to us instead. We
immediately returned both checks, totaling more than $200,000, to the
state. But it makes one wonder how careful the state really is with its
checkbook. It was no surprise to hear that some legislators had set up
phony not-for-profits to funnel money back to themselves, their families and
their campaigns.
State land acquisitions, for example, are among the
most carefully watched financial transactions undertaken by the state. It
takes the review and signature of more than 30 state officials to buy a single
acre. That's good. There are millions of dollars involved and
long-term decisions being made. If the rest of the state budget were given
half as much careful scrutiny, we'd find lots of ways to trim the budget.
The Legislature also has promised to return some of the
$500 million it has raided from the EPF to cover past budget deficits. But
we won't hold our breath waiting for that to happen before 2011.
Empire Page: If the Legislature were to restore all of
the cuts you’ve identified, they would have to remove approximately $162 million
from other programs, borrow the money or raise taxes. If a legislator were to ask you where that $162 million
should come from, what would your answer be?
Houseal: As of right now, the Governor doesn't have anyone's permission to
remove funding from the EPF and redirect it to non-environmental spending.
It was the will of the public and the Legislature in 1993 that the EPF have
its own funding source, independent of other state taxes and fees. They
wanted it to provide sufficient money in good years and in bad, while preventing
environmental spending from taking money away from other state priorities.
The Real Estate Transfer Tax and a few voluntary fees (bluebird license plates,
etc.) are the only major sources of revenue for the EPF. By law, that
money is dedicated to provide full funding to the EPF and cannot be spent on
anything else without changing the law. After the EPF is fully funded,
anything leftover can be spent on other things. All of the money needed to
fully fund the 2010-11 EPF will have been collected within the first three to
six months of the fiscal year.
In order to prevent that money from reaching the EPF, the Legislature and
Governor would have to agree to change the law that requires the first $200
million or so to be deposited into the EPF automatically. Governors Cuomo
and Pataki never attempted to rob the EPF of its funding source, even though
Pataki several times raided the unspent funds from past years. Gov. Eliot
Spitzer tried to take away the Real Estate Transfer Tax revenue from the EPF,
but was stopped by the Legislature. Undaunted, Governor Paterson continues
to press lawmakers to rob the EPF of both its current funding source and its
unspent balances.
Anyone care to bet whether he will be out touting the state's weak
environmental spending at Earth Day events this year? It may not mean much
to a Governor who doesn't intend to run for re-election, but it is important to
note that no one has won statewide office in New York without a strong
environmental record in more than 20 years. Al D'Amato was the last one,
and even he was an environmentalist every six years, at election time. The
public cares about parks, clean water and clean air. Those who
short-change these priorities risk their political futures.
Empire Page: In a press release your group issued
January 19 of this year, you criticized the elimination of $450,000 from the
state budget for breast cancer research. Please explain why this is an Adirondack Park issue.
Houseal: People in portions of the Adirondack Park seem to have higher than normal
cancer rates. Breast cancer is still among the deadliest forms.
Prevention is the key, but requires a deeper understand of the risks than we
currently possess.
Instead of asking the government to protect the environment, why not hark back to Theodore Roosevelt and the idea that protecting the environment is something that we as citizens should and can do ourselves. Instead of relying on DEC policing off-terrain vehicles, fish poachers and sloppy hikers, shouldn't the Adirondack Council focus on educating the public about how to use the lands of the Adirondack Park in an environmentally-proper manner? Isn't it time for the Adirondack Council to re-thnk its entire approach?
Since health data is tracked county-by-county, it is difficult to isolate
the portions of counties inside the park from those outside (the park includes
parts of 10 counties and all of Essex and Hamilton counties). Some of the
higher-cancer-rate areas appear to be around former metals mining communities
(Mineville, Witherbee, Moriah), where regular exposure to heavy metals and
radiation appears to be higher than in other places. There also appear to
be a larger than normal number of people from these communities who develop MS
as adults, including one of our longest serving staff members and the spouse of
another. Here too, abnormal cell growth is a factor in the disease.
The boom and bust cycles of the mining industry don't help us in tracking
long-term diseases in workers. Those exposed to risk factors in, for
example, the iron and titanium mines of Newcomb and Tahawus would be hard
to judge. They all moved away, scattering in every direction in the
late 1980s, after the mines closed.
In addition, we have very few medical facilities capable of treating cancer
patients inside the Adirondack Park and none that are known for their expertise
in this area. So park residents who are stricken often leave the county or
even the state to seek medical help, making it hard for their county health
officials to track the number of patients or the outcomes of the
treatment. Our population is so small, epidemiological studies are a very
expensive challenge.
Other apparent cancer-risk factors include higher social tolerance for
smoking in the north country in general, and perhaps some dietary habits.
But the reality is that we don't know enough about the causes. Until we do
understand the causes, cutting the research funding is just foolish.
Last question: It is likely that government at all levels will have
less money to manage the environment for many years to come. Further,
in my humble opinion when it comes to the environment, our government
treats its citizens like children which results in their acting like
children, requiring more and more rules and more and more policing to
make sure they follow the rules.
Instead of asking the government to protect the environment, why not hark back to Theodore Roosevelt and the idea that protecting the environment is something that we as citizens should and can do ourselves. Instead of relying on DEC policing off-terrain vehicles, fish poachers and sloppy hikers, shouldn't the Adirondack Council focus on educating the public about how to use the lands of the Adirondack Park in an environmentally-proper manner? Isn't it time for the Adirondack Council to re-thnk its entire approach?
Houseal:
We don't believe it is true that there will be less and less money for the
environment in the years ahead. Adequate environmental spending is so
small a percentage of the overall budget of any level of government that even
moderate increases place little pressure on other spending priorities. New
York's Environmental Protection Fund, at its highest level, never made up more
than 0.024 percent of state spending. It has been, and remains, a matter
of pocket change.
As we have seen from the public's reaction to park-closure announcements
and talk of a moratorium on land purchases, the public doesn't like those ideas
and is willing to go out of its way to say so. Even your poll on the Empire
Page confirmed this. Even in a recession, people told you they would pay
more to keep the parks open this summer. In New York and across the
nation, environmental spending is being given greater priority as the public's
understanding of the need increases.
Our work with the media is our main public education effort. We are
quoted more often than any other regional environmental organization. We
have members in all 50 United States and on four continents. There is also
evidence to suggest that our message is reaching those far beyond New York or
even the U.S.
Did you know that New York City and the State of Alabama both have their
own "forever wild" programs now? Were you aware there is a new national
park in England (South Downs National Park) modeled on the Adirondack
Park? Few people seemed to notice that a vast area of the Siberian
wilderness has now been preserved under a compact nearly identical to New York's
constitutional protection for the Adirondack Forest Preserve.
Under the Obama administration, New York can expect help in the form of
Forest Legacy Act funding and money from the federal Land & Water
Conservation Fund. New York just received the first of what we hope will be
several grants from the Forest Legacy program for the purchase of Follensby
Pond. The pond was the site of the 1858 Philosopher's camp at which Ralph
Waldo Emerson and William Stillman and their guests founded the American
wilderness preservation movement. The state's ownership of this parcel
could give Tupper Lake an outstanding gateway to the western High Peaks
Wilderness and the state's tallest mountains.
When coupled with the $695,000 in planning and community improvement grants
that the Adirondack Council's hired consultant has brought in for the Town of
Tupper Lake in the past two years, this presents the community with a splendid
opportunity to create a local boom in tourism related to this soon-to-be
wilderness.
Federal grants for water and sewage-treatment systems are also flowing
again, which is vital to small towns such as Essex and Elizabethtown, whose
residents want to protect water quality on the Bouquet River and Lake Champlain,
but who don't have the resources to foot the bill alone. Both are due to
receive federal water quality grants. Many environmental programs that
suffered a lack of funding under the Bush administration are being reinvigorated
by his replacement. These programs will provide jobs, both in construction
and long-term maintenance, while easing the burden on local property
taxpayers.
In the decades ahead, Americans will spend huge amounts of money changing
the way we generate energy for our homes and businesses; how we conserve energy
through new construction materials and methods; how we move people around our
vast landscape; and, how we preserve the purity of our air and water. If
handled well, these will be excellent investments that will save much more money
than we spend and create millions of new jobs and solid new businesses along the
way.
As for the mission of the Adirondack Council, I don't believe that will
ever go out of style. It becomes more important with each passing
day. The general public are not children when it comes to the environment,
the masses are simply poorly informed. Few people take an earth sciences
course after the early years of high school. Unless they are members of a
group that discusses these issues, they will often remain uninformed.
It is, and has always been, up to organizations like the Adirondack Council
to educate the public on how to care for their own lands and how to be
environmentally sound neighbors. We do it in every newsletter and special
report we issue. But we also seek to change the attitude of government,
which can have a much greater and more immediate impact on policy than public
education alone.
We have seen real progress in the attitudes of people toward the Adirondack
Park in the past 20 years. Back in the early 1990s, we were constantly
engaged in a war of words with local government officials across the park.
They didn't like environmental organizations and gave their tacit support when
local bullies and cranks vandalized our office building and phoned-in arson
threats. They looked the other way when troubled individuals burned
down the business of one of our trustees; hanged staff members in effigy outside
out headquarters; spread roofing nails in our parking lot; dumped cow manure on
the sidewalk outside our building; burned the barn of an Adirondack Park Agency
commissioner and shot holes in a parked APA car while an APA enforcement team
was investigating a potential violation.
In 1990, there was a sign on the door of the Noonmark Diner in Keene Valley
stating that members and employees of the Adirondack Council and Adirondack
Mountain Club were not welcome. If you visit that fine establishment
today, you will see an Adirondack Council poster-map of the park hanging proudly
on the front of the building. Dozens of local businesses support our work
and have become partners in promoting environmental stewardship in the
park.
We are seeing rapid progress in some surprising places. Last
year, the tiny Town of Inlet passed a law prohibiting the sale or transfer of a
home unless the septic system is working properly. It is a brilliant
advancement for water quality. We have been urging the Legislature to do
something similar statewide, to no avail. But Inlet saw we were right and
acted on its own. This would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
As for self-policing, we see time and time again that this doesn't work
very well -- especially where commerce and profit are concerned. Some
people simply place profit ahead of all else and will not consider taking
personal action that would curb that profit. If a few animals lose their
homes, a few fish die, or some water gets polluted, so what? Most people
try hard not to harm the environment in their daily lives. If we are
aware of the consequences of what we are doing, most of us will be
careful. Everyone can play a role in environmental protection, if given
the information they need.
Often, our greatest challenge is defending the idea that Adirondack
Wilderness is a place we ought to leave alone, in a totally natural state.
It runs against many American cultural ideals. There is a constant,
nagging temptation to fix nature, clean it up, make it prettier, "improve"
it. This urge may have come to us from our European ancestors, who knew
nothing of wilderness back home and saw this one as an impediment to their
progress. The Iroquois and Algonquin knew better, but lacked the might to
impose their will. Only now, with most of the American wilderness gone,
are we beginning as a society to change our minds and habits about wild
places.
Happily, large portions of Adirondacks escaped westward expansion and
"civilization" because the mountains and wetlands made the landscape
too remote and expensive to tame. That is why we have an Adirondack
wilderness today. That is why the Adirondack Park is the largest intact
deciduous forest left on earth. Places like the Adirondacks once stretched
around the globe in the northern hemisphere. Now, it is one of a
kind. Every day it grows more valuable.
April 21st, 2010 at 07:48 AM Mr. Houseal wants to be sure there is no interuption of funding to keep the Adirondacks on the state dole. His organization of wealthy Manhattan based Adirondack vacation estate owners has worked hard to obstruct economic progress in the region. If the welfare checks stop coming, there will be an increased outcry from the 'aboriginees' calling for his orgaization, the Adirondack Council, to get out of the way.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:01 PM Ms. Trenchfield appears to have skipped reading the article and gone straight to character assassination. I hope her bigoted outburst made her feel better. But her hateful words are proven wrong by even a cursory review of the interview above. Also, she appears to need a dictionary. Nice job Joyce!
May 28th, 2010 at 08:33 AM Mr. Sheehan, is it in your job description to monitor and respond to every overzealous online post about the Adirondack Council, officials and members? I am glad to see the Adirondack Council is spending its time and money wisely. Since your organization is as well funded as we all know it is maybe you should help the state close the EPF shortfall?
May 31st, 2010 at 01:40 PM Mr. Larkin, Mr. Sheehan will claim that you have insulted him. You too Joyce. Mr. Sheehan's job is to promote Collective Ownership. Is this correct sir, or am I insulting you (again)?