{"id":4271,"date":"2011-05-20T13:14:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T17:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2011-06-01T08:56:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T12:56:43","slug":"decs-martens-committed-to-adirondack-land-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/05\/20\/decs-martens-committed-to-adirondack-land-purchase\/","title":{"rendered":"DEC&#8217;S Martens:  &#8220;committed&#8221; to Finch Pruyn land purchase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DEC commissioner Joe Martens said on Wednesday of this week that New York state remains &#8220;absolutely committed&#8221; to acquiring the former Finch Pruyn fee title lands in the Adirondack Park.<\/p>\n<p>His comments are quoted in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com\/page\/content.detail\/id\/524615.html\">today&#8217;s Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>.\u00a0 They come in the wake of growing pressure by North Country government leaders to cancel or downsize the 65,000-acre deal.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mike Lynch&#8217;s article, Martens spoke at a lunch meeting of the Adirondack Research Consortium in lake placid, laying out a detailed argument in favor of continuing land purchases inside the blue line.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;How much is enough?&#8221; Martens said. &#8220;(Hamilton County Supervisor)  Bill Farber and I and others have had this conversation before. I still  think there are lands out there once we get beyond Finch, Pruyn. There&#8217;s  places that don&#8217;t have good public access, so I think we&#8217;re getting  into the stage of just rounding out the acquisitions in the Park.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I  don&#8217;t see great big landscapes like Finch, Pruyn that are out there on  the horizon. There&#8217;s a few tracts. But mostly it&#8217;s rounding out the  Park, providing better public access so that we can manage the lands  better. Maybe some connective tissue between areas for management and  things like connectivity. But I don&#8217;t see the big picture changing for  that. That&#8217;s my personal opinion, but there&#8217;s probably 100 different  opinions in this room.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Obviously, Martens&#8217; &#8220;personal opinion&#8221; carries a lot of weight.\u00a0 As DEC commissioner, he could well shape the timeline for this project, being negotiated with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n<p>Governor Cuomo, meanwhile, was less specific during his stop in Lake Placid this week.\u00a0 He described conservation efforts as \u201cvery important,&#8221; according to a report on <a href=\"http:\/\/wnbz.com\/May2011\/052011\/CuomoVagueOnAdirondack.htm\">WNBZ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But he declined o comment on the Finch deal specifically.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cYou then have a  \t\t\tquestion on the specific purchase,\u201d he said. \u201cThis purchase, this  \t\t\tland here at this cost, at this time \u2013 and that\u2019s a case-by-case  \t\t\tdetermination.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DEC commissioner Joe Martens said on Wednesday of this week that New York state remains [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}