THE RECORDER
Amsterdam, NY
October 13, 2004

Lake permit fee audit takes shape

By CRAIG CLARK

JOHNSTOWN - The regulators of the Great Sacandaga Lake have reached the beginning of the end in a yearlong flap over the price of access permits on the man-made reservoir.

On Tuesday, the board of directors of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District approved a $38,500 contract with an Albany firm to audit the permit system employed on the lake.

Permit fees on the lake will remain frozen for the 2005 summer season as the audit is not expected to be complete before the applications for next year's permits are to go out to lake users. Regulators froze the access permit fees this year and kept them level with the prices of recent years, promising lake users that no increases would be put in effect until an independent audit is completed.

Tuesday's move to select a firm and get the project under way comes almost a year after hundreds of people packed the auditorium and halls of the Northville Central School for a public hearing to discuss the permit fees proposed for Greater Sacandaga Lake users.

Last year, citing the rising cost of taxes, litigation, insurance and other factors, the regulating board proposed drastically raising the fees.

The state owns the land surrounding the lake, creating what's referred to as the "buffer zone" between the lake and private property. The regulating district then sells annual permits to adjacent property owners and others, granting them exclusive use of the land. The price of the permits remained substantially unchanged for decades but last year the board proposed hiking the fees as much as 1,000 percent for some permit holders.

Public outcry eventually led to the resignation of the regulating district's executive director, who was replaced by current director Richard Lefebvre, and the acceptance by the board of the public's suggestion that an independent audit be performed.

According to the district's bylaws, the permit fees on the Great Sacandaga Lake are to cover the costs associated with running the permit system itself. The audit is expected to review the current bylaws and arrive at what costs the permit fees should cover.

While the audit won't be done in time to impact the fees for 2005, it should impact the district's 2005-06 budget as the permit system year and the district's fiscal year run on different cycles.

DAILY GAZETTE
Schenectady, NY
October 13, 2004

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Big users should pay for reservoir

The Hudson River-Black River Regulating District, the state authority that governs Great Sacandaga Lake, claims vast powers, including the rights of assessment and even taxation. So why isn't it standing up to two energy firms that don't want to pay their full share of the costs of operating and maintaining the reservoir — even though it earns them millions of dollars by regulating the flow of water that spins their hydro turbines on the upper Hudson?

Instead, the district looks to make up the shortfall by tapping other wallets, preferably those belonging to private citizens who can't defend themselves with an army of lawyers. This comes even though the district's own handbook has been assuring us for years that specific downstream firms and municipalities are "obliged by law" to pay for running the reservoir.

At issue is the long-held claim by Niagara Mohawk and Reliant Energy Inc. that they are being overcharged. They pay most of the operation/maintenance bill, and their lawsuits for refunds now total a breathtaking $10 million.

With only meager legal firepower (one staff attorney assisted by an outside law firm), the district is ill-equipped to deal with these multibillion-dollar behemoths. By comparison, its total annual budget is just $6 million.

But, instead of drawing upon the state's powerful legal resources for backup, the district hired an engineering firm to identify other "beneficiaries" of the reservoir that could be charged an annual assessment. Lakeshore property owners topped the list. Earlier, that same firm served as facilitator during negotiations that preceded the new federal license on the reservoir, with its fee partly paid by Niagara Mohawk. I have asked the state comptroller's office to assure that no conflict of interest is involved in the new study.

A new book, "The Adirondack Atlas," notes that Northville "has at least 25 businesses that are principally dependent on summer visitors." Other lake-area communities are equally dependent on tourists and on taxes and expenditures by seasonal property owners attracted to Great Sacandaga. Clearly, if camp owners are deemed "beneficiaries" of the lake, permanent residents of the region could be hit next.

PETER VAN AVERY
Edinburg