Town of Horicon

ATV RULING FOR DEC:

The loss of all-terrain vehicle access will hurt the economy of an Adirondack town that lost a court dispute with the state over control of roads through a state wilderness area, the town's supervisor said Thursday.

Horicon Supervisor Ralph Bentley called one of the environmental groups celebrating the win by the state Department of Environmental Conservation "the dictators of this park ... In the '40s they called it Nazi Germany. They have their own Gestapo with the DEC officers."

"The economy is bad enough up here, and they just drove a whole segment out of state," Bentley said.
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State Supreme Court Justice Richard Aulisi ruled Tuesday in Warren County against the town of Horicon, 70 miles north of Albany, saying it cannot regulate the use of the roads on state forest preserve land.

ATVs and other motorized vehicles are banned from state land designated as wilderness, but the town argued it maintained the roads, or they had been deemed abandoned, so it was free to determine what vehicles could use them. Adirondack ATV enthusiasts have opposed greater restrictions sought by environmentalists, arguing the activity provides an economic boost to the area's struggling economy.
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Aulisi ruled that the town couldn't prove it maintained the roads for the necessary 10-year period before the state acquired the property.