LAKE PLACID — Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo is being asked to investigate back-room correspondence between the Department of Environmental Conservation and three environmental groups.

Under Freedom of Information Law, James McCulley obtained more than a dozen e-mails sent after the Old Mountain Road decision May 19 from various DEC officials to the Adirondack Council, Adirondack Mountain Club and Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.

Between the end of May and early July, the e-mails plot legal reaction to DEC Commissioner Alexander Grannis’s decision, which found the Old Mountain Road between Keene and North Elba to be town-owned property through state land.

The Adirondack Council and the Adirondack Park Agency have asked Grannis to revisit the case.

‘CLOSE ALLIANCE’

McCulley’s attorney, Matthew Norfolk, says the e-mails show clear violations of state “ex parte” law, ordering employees of an agency not to “communicate, directly or indirectly” on any issue of law unless all parties participate.

“DEC has developed a close alliance with various environmental groups and, in reality, has morphed into a state-sponsored environmental advocacy organization funded by the taxpayers of the state of New York,” Norfolk wrote in a motion sent to Grannis and Cuomo.

The allegedly illegal correspondence played out in e-mails from DEC to environmental directors Dave Gibson of the Association, Neil Woodworth of Adirondack Mountain Club and Marc Gerstman, Adirondack Council attorney.

E-MAIL EXCHANGES

Some examples of the e-mails:

E May 29: DEC attorney Charles Sullivan, chief DEC counsel for McCulley’s hearing two years ago, sent Gerstman copies of DEC briefs on the case.

E June 10: Gerstman e-mailed DEC Region 6 Director Judy Drabicki saying he had reviewed DEC’s legal motion asking Grannis to reconsider.

“The motion persuasively makes the case to reopen the commissioner’s decision,” the e-mail said.