Statewide vote required to OK Raquette Lake water system

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November 4, 2007

By SUZANNE MOORE The Press Republican Sun Nov 04, 2007, 11:00 PM EST

PLATTSBURGH -- Tuesday, voters statewide will decide whether the Town of Long Lake can give the Adirondack Park 12 acres of land in exchange for one acre needed for its Raquette Lake water system.

"If the vote fails, the whole thing's fate is up in the air," said John Sheehan, Adirondack Council director of communications.

It's a long and complicated process to make such a trade, with approval from two different sitting State Legislatures required before voters have their say.

But it has happened before, Sheehan said. And, if the ongoing power-line project into Tupper Lake is to cross Forest Preserve lands along Route 56 rather than impact environmentally sensitive private properties, it will be happening again.

"That got first passage this year," Sheehan said. "It won't be on the ballot until 2009."

Oddly enough, it's likely the electric service will be installed late this fall anyhow, just as the 125 residents of Raquette Lake are already using water from wells drilled on the parkland they hope voters will OK for trade.

Should that not happen, Sheehan said, someone would have to file suit against the town to force the capping of those wells and removal of the structures that serve them.

Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward (R-Willsboro) said it's unfair New Yorkers as far flung as Buffalo and Queens will decide if the roughly 70 homes in the Hamilton County hamlet will get clean water.

"It doesn't matter if it's one person or if it's 100,000 people," said Sayward, who represents Essex, Hamilton, Saratoga and Warren counties. "This is a municipality, this is a community in the state of New York ... We should have the same rights that any other community in the state has to provide clean drinking water."

For Raquette Lake, doing so has been a long haul.

Previously, the Raquette Lake reservoir served as the source for drinking water there. When treated with chlorine, as mandated by the State Department of Health, organic material in the water created elevated levels of a carcinogen.

The water was labeled unsafe to drink, and in 2003 the Health Department asked the Department of Environmental Conservation to grant emergency authorization for the town to drill investigative wells.

"The Department of Environmental Conservation and environmental groups decided not to sue the community for trespass because the situation was so dire, a dire health situation, one where we felt it was bad practice," said Sheehan for the Adirondack Council, a not-for-profit environmental organization. "Even if we would have sued and won, the only thing we would have won is a delay in getting (voter) permission."

Pushing for a yes vote on the land trade is the Adirondack Mountain Club, saying in a press release that it is "a good deal for the roughly 150 year-round residents of Raquette Lake, a good deal for the environment and a good deal for the people of New York.

The Adirondack Council is also promoting voter approval of the land trade, though Sheehan emphasized such agreements need to be evaluated on an individual basis.

The swap outside Tupper Lake would also be in the best interest of the Adirondack Park, he said.

If the power project weren't to take the more-direct route along Route 56, he said, it would violate wetlands that "are some of the best spruce-grouse habitat in New York state."

smoore@pressrepublican.com