Key Points

  • The Third Department unanimously affirmed dismissal of an article 78 mandamus petition seeking to compel DEC to conduct a carrying capacity study of the Saranac Lakes Complex.
  • The court held that the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan's statement that DEC "should" conduct a comprehensive study of lakes and ponds is an aspirational planning objective, not a ministerial duty.
  • The Saranac Lakes Wild Forest Unit Management Plan likewise leaves the timing and manner of the study to DEC's professional judgment, and legislative appropriations for a study do not create an enforceable duty absent statutory language.
  • The court distinguished Matter of Jorling v Adirondack Park Agency as a shoreline-variance case that did not involve mandamus, and held the petition stated no clear legal duty against the Adirondack Park Agency.
  • The court did not reach the respondents' time-bar argument or the petitioner's arguments for injunctive relief.

A New York appeals court on Thursday refused to order the state Department of Environmental Conservation to study how much recreational boating the Saranac Lakes in the Adirondack Park can withstand, holding that the planning documents an environmental group relied on set goals for the agency rather than duties a court can enforce.

A five-justice panel of the Appellate Division, Third Department, unanimously affirmed an Albany County judge's dismissal of the case brought by Protect the Adirondacks! Inc., a not-for-profit environmental advocacy organization. Ryba wrote the decision, and Pritzker, Ceresia, Powers and Corcoran concurred.

The ruling leaves the timing of the study to the department, known as DEC. The group had sought what is called a carrying capacity study, which measures the maximum level of recreational use a waterbody can accommodate without impairing its environmental, scenic or recreational character. The court held that neither the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan nor a 2019 management plan for the area obligates DEC to perform one, and that legislative appropriations funding such a study did not change that.

The 2019 document, the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest Unit Management Plan, governs about 75,000 acres of forest preserve lands in the park. Those lands include the Saranac Lakes Complex, which the court described as an interconnected network of lakes, ponds and waterways that supports extensive motorized and nonmotorized recreational use.

In October 2023, the group told DEC that both the Master Plan and the unit management plan legally required it to complete a carrying capacity study of the waterbodies in the complex. DEC declined to begin immediately, explaining that it was engaged in a similar study elsewhere and wanted to evaluate those results before expanding environmental studies to additional lands and waters.

The group then sued DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency under CPLR article 78. It sought mandamus to compel DEC to conduct the study, along with an injunction barring the agencies from approving projects in the Saranac Lakes Complex until the study was done. The agencies moved to dismiss, and Supreme Court, in a ruling by Anthony McGinty, granted the motion in a judgment entered April 9, 2025.

On appeal, Justice Ryba began with the standard. "Mandamus to compel is an extraordinary remedy available only where the respondent has a nondiscretionary duty to perform the requested act and the petitioner has demonstrated a clear legal right to compel its performance," the court wrote. Mandamus can compel a ministerial act, one that follows a fixed rule and allows no judgment, but not an act involving discretion.

The Master Plan provides that "[a] comprehensive study of Adirondack lakes and ponds should be conducted by [DEC] to determine each water body's capacity to withstand use, particularly motorized uses" and to maintain the waters' biological, natural and aesthetic qualities. Read in the context of the plan as a whole, the court held, that language stating that DEC "should" conduct the study "is an aspirational planning objective rather than a mandatory one."

The Master Plan sets no deadline, prescribes no scope, methodology or timetable, and offers no objective standard for measuring compliance, the panel said. "Had the drafters intended to impose a ministerial duty enforceable through mandamus, they would have used mandatory language requiring DEC to undertake the study within a prescribed period or upon the occurrence of specified conditions," Justice Ryba wrote.

The court found support in Executive Law ยง 816 (1), which directs DEC to prepare unit management plans that conform to the Master Plan's "general guidelines and criteria." The statute provides that those plans and the Master Plan "shall guide" management of state lands in the park. The Master Plan itself says that "planning is an on-going process" and that revisions will occur "as needs dictate," which the court read as calling for DEC to balance competing priorities.

"To hold otherwise would effectively authorize courts to supervise the timing and prioritization of innumerable planning objectives entrusted to the agency's expertise, a result fundamentally at odds with the limited purpose of mandamus to compel," the court held.

The unit management plan fared no better for the group. It lists the study and ongoing monitoring of environmental and social impacts as management objectives, but it sets no completion date and does not say how the work must be done. Instead, Justice Ryba wrote, "the UMP leaves DEC to determine, in the exercise of its professional judgment, when to undertake the study."

The panel also rejected the group's reliance on Matter of Jorling v Adirondack Park Agency, a 2023 Third Department decision. That case concerned a shoreline variance under wetland regulations and did not involve a request for mandamus, the court said.

The group had also argued that recent legislative appropriations for a carrying capacity study put DEC under an obligation to act. The court disagreed. "Although an appropriation may provide the resources necessary for an agency to act, it does not transform a discretionary management objective into a judicially enforceable ministerial duty absent statutory language to that effect," Justice Ryba wrote.

As for the Adirondack Park Agency, the court held that the petition sought relief only against DEC. It did not allege that the agency was required to perform the study, identify any law or Master Plan provision imposing such a duty on it, or ask that the agency be compelled to act.

Christopher Amato represented Protect the Adirondacks!, and Frederick A. Brodie of the office of Attorney General Letitia James represented DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency.

The panel affirmed the judgment without costs. Having found no enforceable duty against either agency, the court did not reach the agencies' alternative argument that the proceeding was time-barred, or the group's arguments for an injunction against project approvals in the Saranac Lakes Complex.