November 22, 2004
Statement by Peter VanAvery, Batchellerville Bridge Action Committee, on the Office of the State Comptroller's Audit of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District:
The findings of this audit of the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District come as welcome news to Great Sacandaga Lake's 4,650 access permit holders. It puts on public record what we have complained about for decades -- that the Regulating District has been managed with gross incompetence and arrogance. It is an absolute disgrace that this beautiful lake, one of the jewels of the Adirondack Park, has been under the thumb of a board of directors unable or unwilling to fulfill its responsibilities. The Governor, who wields executive control over the District and who appoints its five-member board, should clean house before they do even more damage.
Although the current executive director, hired in January, appears to be making some headway in turning around the District, progress has been glacial, with huge challenges to overcome. A few examples:
- In January, after an abortive attempt to raise access permit fees by 500-1,000 percent, the District announced plans to hire an independent outside auditor to determine the actual cost of running the access permit system, which is supposed to pay for itself. Eleven months later, that auditing firm still has not been hired.
- As noted above, the Regulating District is governed by a five-member board that convenes once a month. Considering the District's problems, one might expect nearly perfect attendance. Yet, at the November 8 board meeting, two members were absent, one for the second month in a row.
- In spite of recommendations by its own outside auditing firm, the District has ignored a basic business practice: the conduct of an annual physical inventory of the equipment it owns to identify items abandoned or "lost." Its outside auditor made this recommendation in August 2003 and repeated it at the District's November 8, 2004 board meeting. This lack of action is inexcusable and suggests that the District has something to hide.
- Most of the cost of operating and maintaining Great Sacandaga Lake, a river-regulating reservoir, is borne by two downstream hydroelectric firms -- Niagara Mohawk and Erie Boulevard Hydropower -- which are charged an annual assessment. The firms claim they are being overcharged and are suing for refunds totaling $10 million. If the District, which has a total annual budget of $6 million, is outgunned in the fight against these multibillion-dollar heavyweights, it will have to seek new funding sources.
- The District's rules and regulations affecting access permit holders need to be reviewed thoroughly to assure that they are fair and have been imposed legally. Astoundingly, 74 years after the creation of the reservoir, the District still cannot tell us whether the state-owned buffer zone around the reservoir is or is not part of the forever-wild Forest Preserve.