Statement by Peter VanAvery
Batchellerville Bridge Action Committee
March 8, 2004
Under the new license issued in 2002 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C., the Regulating District has to follow strict rules that govern its operation of Great Sacandaga Lake. Those rules, incorporated in a document called the Offer of Settlement, were negotiated by 29 stakeholders — including the Fulton County and Saratoga County Board of Supervisors, Erie Boulevard Hydropower, Niagara Mohawk, International Paper, the Adirondack Park Agency, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Great Sacandaga Lake Association, the Great Sacandaga Lake Fisheries Federation, and so on. You'll find the entire list of 29 signatories posted on our web site.
Keep that number — 29 — in mind. At the close of the February 9 board meeting, Rob Foltan and Dick Lefebvre told me that not a single one of those 29 signatories had complained to the Regulating District about the outrageously high water levels that plagued access permit holders last year. In other words, although those 29 signatories had negotiated and signed the Offer of Settlement, they were treating its consequences as not their problem.
The good news is that one signatory, the Fisheries Federation, has finally taken a stand. In the March issue of the Edinburg Newsletter, the group says it has discussed its concerns about high water levels with Chief Engineer Rob Foltan. To quote the group: "The Regulating District should have released water when levels exceeded 768 feet in June, and in the fall and winter." The bad news is that this was an oral complaint and that Rob Foltan doesn't remember it ... but let's concede it to them anyway. The bottom line: we've now heard from one signatory — with 28 to go.
So what's the big deal?
The reservoir is considered "full" at 768 feet above sea level, a point it is supposed to reach by May 31. Last year, from April to June, the level exceeded 768 for 59 days in a row. For 10 of those days, the level exceeded 771 -- the height of the dam. By late October, the level receded to 761. But then it began to rise again. From November to January, the reservoir's level exceeded 768 for 52 days in a row. This was unprecedented. This winter, for the first time in history, every dock on the lake is locked in ice.
These two high-water episodes came at a cost. Many docks and wood stairways were damaged or destroyed. The lake's shoreline was eroded. Fortunately, a fix is easy. All that's necessary is to fine-tune the license a little bit. The reservoir's level may have to exceed 768 at certain times, but unless a downstream flood situation exists, the license should be revised to state that exceptions should be as few as possible and limited to 10 days. All it would take to give the Regulating District the flexibility it needs to dump excess water would be for a single new paragraph — composed of about a half-dozen sentences — to be added to the license. I suspect that Rob Foltan could draft the words in a remarkably short period of time.
Section 2.7 of the Offer of Settlement establishes the procedure for amending the license. The problem is that the licensee -- in this case, the Regulating District -- must initiate proceedings, and so far it has indicated zero willingness to do so. Nor will it budge unless some of the signatories apply pressure. That's why we are asking our members and the rest of the lake community to rally those signatories to our cause. We want folks to ask their supervisors and other elected officials for support. And if people are members of other signatory organizations like the GSLA or the Adirondack Council or the Adirondack Mountain Club, etc., we want them to urge their organization to help light a fire under the Regulating District. We need their help in protecting our quality of life and the value of our property. Meanwhile, if the District truly wants to demonstrate that it has ended its seven-decade-old strategy of treating access permit holders as second-class citizens, it should stop dragging its heels on our proposal and take the corrective action we recommend.
Now, I want to end with a few words on a different subject. At the January 12 board meeting, the Regulating District's board told us that the minutes of its meetings would be posted on its web site. But nothing has happened.
Why do I want to see those minutes?
At that same January board meeting, I believe I heard the Secretary/Treasurer, Mr. Scaringe, mention that access permit holders would not be treated as beneficiaries of the lake. That was an extremely important announcement, so important that our members want to see it in writing. As we sit here listening to Mr. Foley recite his monthly list of downstream beneficiaries that are litigating against the District for a reduction in their annual assessment, it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the District may be facing a very precarious fiscal future. In short, the District may soon find it necessary to broaden its definition of lake beneficiaries who would then be subject to an annual fee like the one imposed on downstream hydro plants and cities.
The threat is that access permit holders then would be hit with two annual fees: the traditional one for exclusive use of a segment of the state-owned buffer zone around the lake, plus a new one based on the value added to our private property by the existence of the lake. So again, if we are indeed exempted as beneficiaries, we want to see it in black and white.
Thank you.