Meet the New Catskill Park Coordinator
It’s something the Catskill Center advocated for as a member of the Catskills Advisory Group (CAG), and now the Catskill Park has its first ever Catskill Park Coordinator. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos announced the new position in November 2021 to help lead DEC's ongoing and collaborative efforts to promote sustainable use of public lands in the Catskill (and Adirondack) Forest Preserves. The CAG had called for the creation of such a position to help balance the increase in numbers of visitors and with natural resource protection and public safety, especially along the Route 23 corridor.
McCrea Burnham is the new Catskill Park Coordinator. He will help coordinate efforts with the multiple communities and regions of the Catskill Park to better guide efforts to address the unique problems caused by the uptick in visitors to the Catskill Forest Preserve. Burnham comes to the position as a longtime staffer from DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests, where he concentrated on recreation, education, and trail management. (Josh Clague is the new Adirondack Park Coordinator and also a longtime staffer from DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests.) Catskills Magazine’s Allison Dunne spoke with him about his plans for the new position.
AD: What is your relation to the Catskills region?
MB: Well, I was born in Walton, New York, at the Delaware Valley Hospital. And I grew up in Roscoe, New York, and graduated high school there in1992.
AD: Roscoe is known as Trout Town, USA and a top destination for fly fishing, so it’s only fair to ask if you fly fish?
MB: I do fly fish, but not as much as I'd like to. I used to a lot. But you know, life has gotten in the way of that.
AD: What is the importance of this new position and how do you view it?
MB: I'm starting with the Catskill Advisory Group’s (CAG) report, as my position grew from this group to begin with. This report will be the foundation that'll guide me in this position for the next few years. And then, with all the partners and DEC staff, we’ll expand and then figure out as a group where this position goes.
AD: So what will be your focus off the bat? I mean, there's long term, short term and medium term, I'm sure. So what are short-term and then long-term goals?
MB: Well, I first started with a focus right on the CAG’s interim report, which has four main recommendations, calling for better education of recreational users, right off the top. They want to do a better job with diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). But, you know, obviously, that's a spot where it’s a challenge for myself because I'm behind the eight ball first off, like most 48-year-old white men, but I'm ready to listen. And I've already been listening to the Adirondack diversity initiative. They've been helping us improve our recruitment for our natural resource stewards. We're trying to diversify that program. We have, since its inception, tried to diversify that program, and struggled. But the Adirondack diversity initiative has been very gracious in helping us edit our job descriptions. And they've also helped us spread the word in more communities than we at DEC have traditionally reached.
AD: Let's talk about overuse, because obviously, that was the case around the state since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Overall, there is much higher use than ten, 20 years ago. What comes to mind when you think of addressing overuse?
MB: Well, there's a lot of different things we need to discuss when we talk about, we like to call it high use. And if we build our facilities correctly, as we move forward, and we build them sustainably so they can handle the use, we shouldn't have overuse, we should only have high use. And so when you look at Kaaterskill, in the last ten years, we made huge improvements there. Obviously, we still lack parking, but the facility itself can handle the numbers of people coming other than the parking and unacceptable bathroom situation. But we're wrestling with those and we’re going to continue wrestling with those issues. So what we need to do when we talk about high use is we need to look at our facilities. So if you want to go to a high peak, you want to go to Cornell, or Slide, we need to have sufficient parking. We need to have a restroom somewhere in the vicinity of that trailhead, not just a porta potty at the trailhead because we know that's not enough. You need to have a restroom for people to use because many of these people are traveling up from New York City, maybe Boston. And then we need to make sure the trails are sustainably constructed and built. And that's going to be a real challenge for the Department (DEC). Many of our trails were not built, they were walked in by physically fit people and aren't necessarily in the best locations. And that is going to be a challenge for us to struggle with for many years. But we have a lot of great partners out there helping us to keep people on the trails, try to stop the widening. It's a challenging thing for the Department because, on one hand, our natural resources are an economic driver for the Catskills, but that was never its intention. So how do we beef up the natural resource protections that we need and not hurt the economics of the Catskill region?
AD: For the Catskill Center, that's what we do is balance conservation and development. It’s why we exist. And, of course, reasonable development, not just any development, but I hear you, and it is a big undertaking. Part of this, as you mentioned earlier, too, is education, and you know that we are strong believers in this with our Catskill Stewards Program. We’re proud of it, and doubled the number of stewards for 2021, had a ridge runner for the first time on Devil's Path. And our stewards are able to get those people who come to Kaaterskill Falls or Peekamoose Blue Hole and say, hey, I know it's muddy, but it's just so much better if you just truck on through that and don't make a social trail, things like that. And we really think that education is working. What do you think about that part of the stewards work? How important are the stewards? Would you like to see that program grow?
MB: Yeah, the stewards-type programs are going to be an essential part of how we protect the Catskills and the Adirondacks, quite frankly, whether it's a trailhead steward, a Ridge Runner, a High Peaks steward, we need them, we need more of them. And they're a friendly face. You get into that authority of the resource versus the authority of the agency stuff. It's kind of a very complex thought process. But in a simple form, that trail ambassador, friendly face who educates, helps protect our natural resources, is there if you actually need real assistance, first aid, and those types of things. They are going to be a big part of the way we educate the public on the proper use of our natural resources across the country, but in the Catskills specifically.
AD: And our Stewards Program is a partnership with DEC. So we're working hand in hand here.
MB: Absolutely. And they're very cost-effective programs. That's something people really need to hear. These are cost-effective programs. The Catskill Center has a whole bunch of stewards, which is great. The Catskill Mountainkeeper had a few in Sullivan County where we may not be seeing some of the use that we're seeing at Kaaterskill and at Blue Hole, but they're seeing high use in Beaverkill, Crystal Lake. And then we've got a partnership with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, which was started by Jeff Senterman and myself, but Jeff, really, I was just sort of the contract person for DEC, authoring the agreement and coordination between DEC regions and the different programs. So we’ve got a lot to be proud of when we talk about stewards, you know, between all of our partners, the Catskill Center has been a leader in this stuff. And we're going to hopefully be growing these programs.
AD: How do you see balancing all of the different interests in the region?
MB: It's getting tough. I don't want anyone to think it's easy to balance multiple interests. But the first thing you need to do is create open and honest communication. We need to give everybody the space to give their honest opinion because if they can't, then they'll never buy into anything that we do. And I think the Catskill Center does a great job of this, and so do others, where they allow everybody to say what they really believe, and I'm going to participate in that wholeheartedly because that's going to be the key is having everybody have the opportunity to say what they really think, even if I don't like what you have to say. And then we need to compromise. I had a friend give me really good advice on what this job was. He said, your job is going to be to listen. He had three things and I added a fourth, but it was listen to the public, do the doable, and protect natural resources. I added compromise because we're not going to be able to do everything for everybody. And it's going to start with honest communication. If a town supervisor doesn't feel that he can tell the DEC the truth in front of Jeff Senterman, that's a problem. We need to be able to all sit in the same room and hear the same facts or the same information and have everybody's opinion honestly spoken and not be offended. We need to try to work in a way that we politely tell our side of the story, and then we need to compromise and figure out how to protect our natural resources, how to spur the economy by protecting our natural resources because that's totally, absolutely achievable. We follow the New York State Constitution with Article 14, we protect our natural resources, and we spur the economy by bringing ecotourism to the Catskills. (Article 14 of the New York State Constitution was put in place in 1894. And it really, it set the lands owned within the Catskill Park, and the Adirondack Park, in a constitutionally-protected state. And it really limits what the state, the bureaucrats like myself, and the public can do on those lands. So it protects timber.)
AD: Have you thought about, and this may be a little bit down the road, but just given the state mandate from the previous governor, and now obviously the current governor, climate change goals and related state initiatives and mandates? How much of this is weighing on your mind when you may be listening to all these parties?
MB: Well, we are challenged every day by our executive to make sure we aren’t contradicting our climate change goals. The big challenge for us with climate change is these massive storms that keep coming, so when I think of recreation management and forest preserve management, how do I protect our natural resources? How do I protect our trails from these storms and live within the constitution of the state?
AD: In your new role, will you be working in the Catskills? Back and forth? How does this work?
MB: Well, they intend for me to sit in Albany. That's where the office is. And a lot of this is going to be meetings and conference calls between two different regions. You have the Schenectady and Stanford office for Region Four, and you've got the New Paltz office for Region Three. But you know, Albany is only an hour away from Greene County, parts of the Catskill Forest Preserve. I still travel down. I spend many weekends in the Beaverkill Valley. So, a two-hour drive in New York, as you in the Catskills know, is not a big drive. So if it's appropriate for me to be at something, that's not going to be a problem. My head and heart are in the Catskills, so I'll be there a lot.
AD: What about working with the Adirondack Park Coordinator? Yes, the Catskill and Adirondack Parks have some different issues, different needs, but I imagine there'll be discussion between you and Josh. How might you work together on overlapping ideas and concerns?
MB: First, Josh, and I are very good friends. We’re going to sit about ten feet apart. Since he came to the DEC 14 years ago, we've worked pretty closely together. He was the head of our planning section for the Forest Preserve. And yes, I'm on the implementation side. So we had two different focuses for the last 14 years. But I don't get to do any implementation if no planning happens, and there's no reason to do the planning if no implementation happens. That relationship will continue to be built. And I'm going to use his planning mind as I go forth, and nothing that we do in the Catskills is going to look totally different than what we do in the Adirondacks. We're talking about the same Article 14 of the state constitution, and they’re both constitutionally protected. And the same rules generally apply, and some of the same issues affect them. When you talk about our Route 23A corridor through the Kaaterskill Clove and you look at our Route 73 in the Adirondacks, the use may be different - we're going to swimming holes in the Catskills and they're going to the high peaks — but the parking issues are the same. The road structure is probably worse in the Catskills, but they're similar. They're these state roads that are very narrow. There's nowhere for people to park and the droves of people coming, we just don't have the facilities to handle it. So those conversations are the same. They're talking about shuttles and they've implemented shuttles. We're talking about getting a shuttle on Route 23A. We did permits at Blue Hole. They're now doing permits in one of their areas. So we're talking every day about those issues, and we're modeling each other. They're a little ahead of us on the shuttle, we're a little ahead of them on permits. And we're one agency, it's DEC. It's the forest preserve, it’s Adirondacks and Catskills, but they're both under the same Article 14. So it shouldn't look too different. And Josh and I are going to coordinate a lot.
AD: Is there an area in the Catskills or areas where you're thinking need attention right away? Or an issue? What strikes you as, wow, we need to take care of that.
MB: There are two areas in the Catskills that I think are central. It's the trails and the high peaks. We have to make sure that we protect those vital, natural resources. One of our planners in DEC’s Region Three has been studying trailless peaks for two or three years. And we're getting to a point where we need to have conversations about how we protect the Bicknell’s Thrush along those trails? What is the right thing for these areas? And then the other thing is that most of this land is the New York City watershed. And people come here to swim and enjoy these waters. But how do we protect the drinking water of some 10 million people and allow people to come here and enjoy it and spur our economy? So these two activities are going to spur our economy, but we’ve got to do it right.
AD: The DEP watershed is one thing that does not exist in the Adirondacks, so that's a challenge that's pretty unique to the Catskills.
MB: The concept of our swimming holes and all these little creeks is not something that exists in the Adirondacks either. They have swimming holes, but not like we do.
AD: Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
MB: I look forward to working with everybody down there on the state's property. I look forward to working with the public and understanding their goals and their interests.
Photo - McCrea Burnham (center); Jeff Senterman (left); New York-New Jersey Trail Conference Executive Director Josh Howard (right), 2015