SEPARATE ISSUES

The Town of Arkwright is not in the Adirondack or Catskill parks, Gerstman notes.

The 2,190 acres of State Wildlife Management Area in Arkwright that do not receive state tax payments are not preserved by the Article 14 "forever wild" law in state constitution, and "there is no conceivable scenario under which the number of visitors to Arkwright remotely approaches the number of annual visitors who frequent the Catskill and Adirondack Preserves."

The green groups look to long-standing preservation to exempt the northern parks from any fallout from the Dillenburg decision.

"It was inappropriate for the lower court in this case to lump the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves in with other state forest lands," said Neil Woodworth, Adirondack Mountain Club executive director.

"The payments on Forest Preserve lands have been upheld by New York's courts over the past 122 years."

kdedam@pressrepublican.com