Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Ben Westcott & Mark Frost
Chronicle Staff Writer & Editor
In a stinging defeat for the Lake George Association and vindication of the Lake George Park Commission and Adirondack Park Agency, the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court reversed Supreme Court Judge Robert Muller’s 2023 ruling and set the stage for using the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR EC as soon as this spring to combat Eurasian milfoil in Lake George.
After the APA approved the Lake George Park Commission’s application to use ProcellaCOR to combat the invasive Eurasian milfoil in two bays in Hague, the LGA filed an Article 78 petition challenging the approval. Judge Muller ruled in the LGA’s favor.
The Appellate Division’s four-judge panel ruled on May 2 that Judge Muller “should have dismissed the petition in its entirety,” thus reinstating the okay to use ProcellaCOR.
“We’re on track to have a 2024 application,” Park Commission Executive Director Dave Wick tells The Chronicle.
“What was good about the decision was the level of specificity and detail that the four judge panel went through to not only address the process issues, but address some of the scientific claims, and set those more correctly.”
Mr. Wick said of the LGA, “We hope that this closes the chapter on the challenges between us and they can work with us on this project.”
Not happening.
“We’re going to appeal. That’s a guarantee,” Peter Menzies, the LGA’s Interim Executive Director, told The Chronicle Friday.
“And we’re going to continue to very forcefully and clearly articulate our concerns about ProcellaCOR in the public realm. It’s my goal to make certain that ProcellaCOR does not go into Lake George in 2024.”
Mr. Menzies said, “The court was dealing with information from 2022. A lot has changed in the last two years. We’ve done a ton of research, and there has been extensive new information available to show that ProcellaCOR will adversely impact Lake George.”
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