By MICHAEL VIRTANEN
Associated Press

ALBANY - A southeastern Adirondack town cannot authorize ATVs on the old dirt roads winding through the state land within its boundaries, a state appeals court ruled Dec. 27.

The 2002 Horicon law opening eight roads to all-terrain vehicles should be annulled, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court concluded. The five justices said the town 70 miles north of Albany failed to comply with state environmental and traffic laws that require assessing potential damage and possible alternative routes.

ATVs are restricted in the state-owned Forest Preserve and banned from designated wilderness areas. But the town argued that it maintained the roads, which were still publicly used, though some were deemed abandoned, so people should have access on their four-wheelers.

Town Supervisor Ralph Bentley called it "a travesty" to have hundreds of miles of old dirt roads "perfectly suitable for ATVs" in the Adirondacks, while residents have to go to Maine or Canada to ride. Horicon has spent $50,000 on the lawsuit and probably won't continue the case, he said.

A state Supreme Court justice in Warren County first ruled against the town last year. That was affirmed last week with the rejection of Horicon's appeal.

"They're all old town roads. People lived there back in the 1800s and early 1900s. They've been used by the public ever since then," Bentley said, noting that the state has essentially banned ATVs from all state land in the Adirondacks. "Now you'll have 3 million acres for hiking."

In the appellate ruling, Hon. D. Bruce Crew III wrote that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is land manager for the underlying Forest Preserve, and town officials made no effort to confer with them or do a coordinated environmental review.

"The review process undertaken by respondents, which charitably could be described as perfunctory, was devoid of any studies or analyses," Crew wrote. "While we acknowledge that in the absence of such studies, the impact of opening the routes to routine ATV use upon soil erosion, drainage patterns, air quality and noise levels - to name but a few potential impacts - cannot definitively be ascertained, it simply strains credulity to suggest, as respondents summarily concluded, that opening forest lands to ATV usage would have no impact whatsoever upon any of these areas."

DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren said the agency was pleased with the court's ruling. "It upheld our authority in protecting these sensitive forest-preserve lands and wildlife from any unauthorized access," she said.

The DEC in 2004 closed 54 Adirondack roads to ATVs in Lewis, Herkimer, Oneida and St. Lawrence counties, finding riders were damaging forest lands. In March, another state judge concluded that the agency's decision was "rationally based" and within its authority.