TO: Batchellerville Bridge Action Committee Members
FROM: Peter VanAvery
DATE: February 20, 2004
If your private property -- your dock, wood stairway, boat, etc. -- suffered damage from Great Sacandaga Lake's excessively high water levels last year, please be sure to report the estimated or actual cost of repairs on the BBAC's Damage Survey. You can do this in two installments. At the moment, we are looking for damage resulting from the April to June 2003 high-water episode. During that time, the water level exceeded 768, the point at which the reservoir is considered full, for 59 days in a row. We won't know the bad news about the second high-water episode, from November 2003 until January 2004, until the ice melts. You can file a second report at that time. During the latter episode, the lake's level exceeded 768 for 52 days in a row. Our Damage Survey takes about two minutes to complete. Thanks!
We have posted newspaper coverage of the Regulating District's February 9 board meeting on our web site -- www.nybbac.org. -- along with the text of my statement. The most interesting bit of info I picked up came in response to a question late in the three-hour session, when the District revealed that not a single one of the 29 signatories to the Offer of Settlement has complained to it about the high water levels that caused so much damage last year.
That's an astounding piece of news. For example, we know that the GSL Fisheries Federation, one of the signatories, is unhappy about high water levels. In a letter printed in a lake-area publication, the group blames the water levels on the Regulating District's misinterpretation of the rules in the Offer of Settlement. Let's overlook the fact that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which issued the 2002 license on the reservoir and which polices it, has ruled that the District is in compliance with the Offer of Settlement. The point I'm driving at is that the Fisheries Federation has never submitted its complaint to the Regulating District, where it would do some good. What kind of game are they playing? Can't they afford the postage?
As for the Great Sacandaga Lake Association, its response to the high-water debacle has been ... total silence.
The BBAC views the Offer of Settlement as flawed and in need of change. We are not unreasonable people, and we understand that the lake's level may have to exceed 768 at certain times. However, unless a downstream flood situation exists, we want those exceptions to be as few as possible and limited to a maximum period of ten days. To achieve this goal, the Regulating District needs to be given more flexibility to dump excess water. This should not require a rewrite of the Offer of Settlement -- just some fine-tuning.
As you know, the Offer of Settlement was negotiated and signed by 29 stakeholder organizations/groups/agencies/firms/political leaders. The list of those stakeholders has been published before. But now, for what we believe is the first time in print, here is a list of the 29 individuals who actually affixed their names to the document. It took us a month, and two Freedom of Information Law letters, to obtain the names. Tell these individuals that you want some action:
Richard H. Blackmer, Adirondack Boardsailing Club, Inc.
Bernard Melewski, Adirondack Council
Betty Lou Bailey, Adirondack Mountain Club, Inc.
Daniel T. Fitts, Adirondack Park Agency
Gary Staab, Adirondack River Outfitters, Inc.
Andrew Fahlund, American Rivers
Peter N. Skinner, American Whitewater
Dave Gibson, Association for the Protection of The Adirondacks
Janet M. Audunson, Erie Boulevard Hydropower, LP
Christopher C. Reed, Feeder Canal Alliance
James P. Callery, Fulton County Board of Supervisors
Jacqueline Bave, Glens Falls Chapter of Adirondack Mountain Club
Willard D. Roth, Great Sacandaga Lake Association
Randy R. Gardinier, Great Sacandaga Lake Fisheries Federation, Inc.
Walter T. Ryan, Great Sacandaga Lake Marinas
Thomas E. Brewer, P.E., Hudson River-Black River Regulating District
Patrick J. Cunningham, Hudson River Rafting Co., Inc.
Tom Uncher, International Paper
Signature indecipherable, National Park Service
Bruce Carpenter, New York Rivers United
Howard Cushing, New York State Conservation Council, Inc.
John P. Cahill, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Thomas H. Baron, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation
John C. Duncan, Sacandaga Outdoor Center
John E. Lawler, Saratoga County Board of Supervisors
Thomas Mason, Town of Hadley
Thomas R. Matias, New York State Council, Trout Unlimited
Ronald Lambertson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Douglas Azert, W.I.L.D.W.A.T.E.R.S.
The Regulating District's new Erosion Study of the reservoir's shoreline lists 90 sites that exhibit severe erosion and 80 sites that exhibit moderate erosion. The District should expect complaints from hundreds of property owners who will argue, with justice, that their access permit areas should have been included in the data base. To see if your permit area is listed, you can access the Erosion Study on the District's web site: www.hrbrrd.com. Or send me your name and lake address, and I'll check it out for you.
The study of the lake's 125-mile-long shoreline was conducted on the quick by Gomez and Sullivan Engineers, P.C., of Utica. Working from boats, the inspectors looped the lake's 125-mile-long shoreline in just 8 days from late September to early October. They should have spent twice or three times as much time on the project. Certain parts of the lake's shoreline are hidden behind bushes. To detect the effects of erosion, you need to walk those areas.
Worse, after the inspection, the findings were rendered obsolete when the shoreline was subject to 52 consecutive days of high water from November 2003 to January 2004. The scouring action of wind and ice damaged the shoreline further. If you feel your access permit area belongs on the list, be sure to complain early and loud. Last year, working from May to August, the District's maintenance crew remediated just 78 permit areas. Compare that number against the 4,639 access permits issued by the District!
The NYS Department of Transportation has announced that it does not yet have the funds for construction of the replacement Batchellerville Bridge, scheduled for 2005. However, DOT does expect to begin the final design phase this year. Total project cost: $37 million.
Responding to pressure from the public and from environmentalists, Saratoga County has halved the height of the three emergency radio towers it plans to build on mountains around Great Sacandaga Lake. A revised permit application sent this week to the Adirondack Park Agency calls for a 97.5 foot tower on Fraker Mountain in Edinburg, a 96-foot tower on the south side of the lake in Day, and a 76.5-foot tower on Mount Anthony in Corinth. These measurements include whip antennas, which will extend about 9 feet above the tower structure. The Countys initial proposal, in 2001, called for towers 180 feet tall. The Fraker Mountain and Mount Anthony towers are the subjects of eminent domain proceedings. A public hearing on the Fraker Mountain eminent domain proceeding will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, March 1, at the Edinburg Firehouse. If you'd like to see the DAILY GAZETTE story on this latest development, I'd be happy to email you a copy.
For you amateur meteorologists out there, I asked District Chief Engineer Robert Foltan for a report on the snow cover in the Sacandaga Area. The average snow depth is currently 70 percent of the historic average for the 1st week of March. The average water content is 65 percent of the historic average for the 1st week of March.
The next meeting of the Regulating District's board will be held at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, March 8, at the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge #1185, 109 S. Comrie Avenue, in Johnstown.