by Lynne Jackson

ALBANY, NY: Save the Pine Bush volunteers discovered yesterday that the City of Albany bulldozed several roads through the Pine Bush Preserve last week.  Dedicated to the Pine Bush Preserve by the Albany Common Council in 1991, this Preserve land is located west of the City landfill . 

Click here to see photos of the bulldozing.

The Pine Bush is a globally rare and endangered ecosystem.  The land bulldozed was high quality, classic Pine Bush, known to support blue lupine plants, the feed plant of the federally endangered Karner Blue Butterfly. Land dedicated to the Preserve can only be removed from the Preserve by the New York State Legislature.  The Legislature has not given the City permission to destroy this land.

It is illegal to bulldoze land set aside as forever wild in the Pine Bush Preserve.

Save the Pine Bush calls on the City to stop its destruction of this land, and restore it to its original condition.  In addition, Save the Pine Bush calls on the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Attorney General to enforce laws that protect land set aside as forever wild.

“This is an outrageous and arrogant act on the part of the City of Albany, to openly defy the laws that protect the Pine Bush Preserve.  The City must be stopped now, before they turn the entire Pine Bush into a landfill,” said Lynne Jackson, volunteer for Save the Pine Bush.

The Pine Bush is a globally-rare ecosystem located between Albany and Schenectady. The Pine Bush is a globally rare ecosystem and is the largest inland pine barrens of its kind in the United States.  There would be no Pine Bush today if it were not for the efforts of Save the Pine Bush, a not-for-profit, all volunteer organization dedicated to Pine Bush preservation.  Save the Pine Bush has been filing lawsuits against municipalities for their illegal approvals of developments in the Pine Bush for more than 28 years.

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