June 12, 2003

High Lake Levels Scour Shoreline, Limit Recreation, Hurt Local Economy

This spring, in violation of target water-level elevations it claimed to have adopted last July 1 as part of the relicensing process for the hydro plant at the Conklingville Dam, the Regulating District has arbitrarily allowed the lake to reach and stay at levels up to more than three feet higher than they should be. The consequences have been devastating. The lake has spilled over its banks; torn large chunks of earth out of the shoreline at numerous places; undercut many hundreds of trees, lawns, and hedges; submerged beaches; and damaged stairways and docks.

The following letter, mailed on June 10 to Governor George Pataki, will bring you up to date:

Dear Governor Pataki:

On June 3, 2003, I wrote to inform you that the shoreline of Great Sacandaga Lake was undergoing massive erosion as a result of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District's mismanagement of water levels in this flood-control reservoir. Since I thought you would like to see how this issue is playing in the press, I am enclosing a feature story (click here) published in the June 8, 2003 edition of the Schenectady SUNDAY GAZETTE. It describes the devastating impact of the lake's needlessly high water levels this spring on both the environment and on recreational uses of this magnificent body of water. One serious casualty is the local economy, which depends heavily upon expenditures by owners of seasonal homes and by tourists. At least one Capital District TV station also has covered this issue.

As a result of the relicensing process for the hydro plant at the Conklingville Dam, conducted under the auspices of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (E.J. West project, FERC No. 2318), the Regulating District officially adopted a new table of target water-level elevations on July 1, 2002. These daily elevations, worked out after negotiations with more than 25 stakeholder groups, called for the Regulating District to seek to maintain the reservoir's level between a minimum of 748 feet above sea level and a maximum of 768 feet above sea level. Since the tip of the dam's spillway is at 771, this set aside three additional feet for emergency storage. These targets assume normal precipitation.

As the Regulating District itself has confirmed, precipitation in the Sacandaga River watershed has been essentially normal this year. One would therefore reasonably expect the lake's level to be on-target this spring, plus or minus a few inches. That has hardly been the case. The Regulating District allowed the lake to exceed 770, two feet above the maximum target level, for more than one month. For a whole week, the level exceeded the height of the spillway and at one point reached three-and-a-half feet above the maximum target level.

During this time, a rumor has persisted that special interest groups, desiring higher water levels and working behind the scenes, managed to incorporate a provision in the license for the dam that limits the amount of water that can be released daily. The effect would be to subvert the goals of the target water-level elevations and make them unobtainable. The enclosed newspaper story provides evidence to support this rumor. It reports that Robert Foltan, the Regulating District's chief engineer, said that "the District is releasing as much water as possible, also per the settlement agreement. He said it could be late June before the Great Sacandaga is within a half-foot of the target elevation."

During the two-year public comment period before the new water-level tables were adopted last July 1, the Regulating District repeatedly provided copies to the lake's 4,550 access-permit holders and other interested parties. Yet, as this spring's experience has demonstrated, the tables appear to be unworkable. Was this deliberate fraud? Did the Regulating District knowingly scam the public? How did the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allow this to happen? And what was the role, if any, of Reliant Resources, Inc., the firm that operates the hydro plant at the Conklingville Dam? I can assure you that if the public had been informed that this spring's abnormally high water levels would become standard operating procedure, the outcry would have been deafening.

We urge you to launch an investigation into this outrage. By copy of this letter, we urge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to do the same. There are only 15 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and high water levels already have ruined two of them for lake users, with no end in sight.

Finally, to add insult to injury, the enclosed newspaper story reports that "the District recently hired an engineering firm to assess the shoreline as part of the settlement agreement." In other words, the Regulating District, which damaged the shoreline, is spending our money to figure out ways to repair damage to the shoreline — and this in a time of fiscal crisis. After all, the solution to the erosion problem is rather obvious: Conform the lake's surface elevation to the new water-level targets, and the problem will go away.

Governor Pataki, please fix this mess.

Sincerely,

Peter VanAvery
Batchellerville Bridge Action Committee