RAY BROOK -- A compromise to let float planes land on Lows Lake for 10 more years was shot down Friday by one vote.

Adirondack Park Agency commissioners decided 6-5 not to allow the Department of Environmental Conservation to extend air traffic to the lake for 10 more years, leaving DEC seeking further compromise.

DEC SUED

Airplane access to the remote region, part of a scenic Five Ponds Wilderness area, was to be phased out after five years, according to a Unit Management Plan approved by DEC in 2003.

But airplane access was not phased out, and last May, five environmental groups sued DEC.

During discussion Friday, DEC attorney Christopher Amato said they would still like to find compromise.

But environmental groups said the compromise was to phase the planes out slowly.

"We did that five years ago," Michael Washburn, executive director of the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, said after the meeting ended.

"Now it is incumbent upon DEC to move forward on a regulation and prohibit float planes on Lows Lake before the 2009 season," said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club.

PLANE OWNERS UPSET

Owners of the two remaining Adirondack wilderness airplane companies were at the APA meeting Friday.

The DEC compromise would have cut trips to four per day, with a maximum of 30 flights per month.

Fridays and Saturdays would have been "no-fly" days, and no planes would have been allowed in to Lows Lake until after 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Jim Payne of Payne's Seaplanes and Air Service said eliminating compromise made it a win-lose situation.

"They've kind of turned it into a black-and-white issue; this whole thing was about compromise. Environmentalists twist everything around so," he said, "and never come and talk to us."