TIMES UNION
Albany, NY
April 6, 2005

Great Sacandaga aids flood control
Reservoir reduced Hudson River flow by 60 percent during recent round of heavy rain

By LEIGH HORNBECK, Staff writer

CONKLINGVILLE -- The Great Sacandaga Lake did its job as a reservoir this week, reducing the flow of the Hudson River by 60 percent, according to officials at the Hudson River Black River Regulating District.

Richard Lefebvre, executive director of the regulating district, said the amount of water stored over the weekend was "nearly 2 times the volume of the Alcove Reservoir," a water supply for the city of Albany located in the Coeymans. That amount of water is equal to 4 years' worth of drinking water for the city, Lefebvre said.

The regulating district will meet Monday in Old Forge, where it will reveal its annual budget for the first time and announce its chief fiscal officer, Henry Hess, is leaving. Lefebvre said Hess, who was hired less than a year ago, is retiring. The district will hire a temporary CFO and pay that person roughly the same as Hess earned a month. His annual salary was $65,000.

Ice still covers much of Sacandaga Lake, and although high water has caused damage along the shoreline in the past, lakeside residents said high water is not a problem now. As of Tuesday afternoon, the lake level was 757.2 feet above sea level. It is considered full when it is at 768 feet.

Sam Johnson, whose home in Day is near the Conklingville dam, said although the lake level rose more than 10 feet over the weekend, it is still far from causing a problem for him. At the other end of the lake, Guy Poulin of Northampton said he saw three docks float by his house -- not everyone learned their lesson from previous years when the water rose quickly, he said.

According to the regulating district, heavy rain over the weekend caused the Hudson River to flow through Fort Edward at an average rate of 20,500 cubic feet per second. Without the reservoir, which held 19.7 billion gallons of water Sunday, the flow would have been more than 50,800 CFS. The extra water would have raised the river level -- already at flood stage -- another four feet in Fort Edward.

The 26-mile-long lake was created in 1930 when the state built a dam at Conklingville. Communities downriver contribute to the upkeep of the reservoir as beneficiaries of flood control. They include Albany, Rensselaer, Troy, Waterford and Watervliet, and the villages of Carthage, Green Island and West Carthage.

THE RECORDER
Amsterdam, NY
April 7, 2005

District says lake doing its job

By Craig Clark

The regulators overseeing the Great Sacandaga Lake say the reservoir quietly did its job this weekend, storing enough water from rains that were heavy enough to produce 100-year flood elevations.

According to figures from the Hudson River-Black River Regulating District, this weekend the Great Sacandaga Lake stored more than 4.45 billion cubic feet of water, preventing flooding downstream of the Conklingville Dam in the town of Hadley.

"Without the combined storage capacity of the state's Hudson River area regulating reservoirs, Hudson River flow would have approached the 100-year flood elevation from Lake Luzerne to Mechanicville. At the 100-year flood elevation, flooding would have damaged homes, commercial and industrial businesses and public facilities, with flood damage values projected at over $25 million," information issued by the district said.

According to the district, the Great Sacandaga stored 13.6 billion gallons Saturday and 19.7 billion on Sunday, reducing the flow of the Hudson River by at least 30,300 cubic feet per second.

The volume of water stored by the reservoir was nearly two and a half times the volume of the Alcove Reservoir, which is used in Albany's water system. This weekend's rainfall amounted to four and a half years worth of drinking water for the city.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the rain resulted in an average Hudson River flow rate of 20,500 cubic feet per second at Fort Edward. A flow rate of more than twice that would have occurred had it not been for the storage capacity of the Great Sacandaga Lake.

"Inflow to the Great Sacandaga Lake peaked at over 31,000 cubic feet per second Sunday morning. If not stored by the reservoir, flow of that magnitude would have caused the Hudson River to exceed the elevation at which structures become inundated (flood stage) by at least 4 feet at Fort Edward," information from the district says.

The district says without the Great Sacandaga Lake and the Indian River Reservoir several hundred homes would have been flooded in Mechanicville, Stillwater and Corinth. Numerous commercial and industrial sites in Mechanicville, Fort Edward and Corinth would have been flooded also, as would the sewage treatment facilities in Schuylerville and Hudson Falls.

As of Wednesday afternoon the district's gauges showed the surface elevation of the Great Sacandaga at around 758 feet above mean sea level. That's up from Friday morning's recorded level of 749.7 feet. An elevation of 758 feet is typical for this time of year, district records show.