The Nature Business

This chapter begins with the introduction of Robert Kafin and his law partner, Ed Needleman who had been talking to Ted Hullar from the Sierra Club, David Newhouse from the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), and Courtney Jones, a philanthropist from the Lake Champlain town of Westport at Harold Hochschild's Great Camp in October 1971. The chapter describes Kafin's career shift and how he learned what was going on in the Adirondacks. Kafin saw that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other new federal laws were broadly written and not widely understood, especially by law firms north of Albany. The chapter reviews how the Adirondack Pack Agency Act added a big new state law to that pile. These laws could be used to shape or stop development. The chapter then shifts to describe how the Adirondack Project established Kafin & Needleman as the people to talk to if you wanted to block development in the Adirondacks. It also reviews the implications of Horizon and Ton-Da-Lay development for the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). Ultimately, the chapter examines the power and influence of some lawyers in relation to the APA.