Yearly Archives: 2013

24 April 2013 LCN Article: Whitefield and Jefferson plan meetings to consider dam ownership

The anticipated article by Shlomit Auciello has appeared in today’s in Lincoln County News:

Whitefield and Jefferson plan meetings to consider dam ownership

It contains some rather serious misinformation. For example:

“PPM’s next recourse is to the departments of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, Conservation (within the .Departrnent of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry) and Emergency Management. If none of those entities choose to take ownership, the state will order the water level lowered and the dam removed, Merrill said.”

That statement is categorically wrong and I can assure you, Dennis said nothing of the kind. He is well aware of what’s in the law. If he had said anything like that, I would have immediately corrected him. And then this:

“He [Fergusson] said the law requires a sale, even if only the cost of transfer is offered and PPM would have to keep the dam if no buyer appears.”

I said that? I don’t think so. The law does not require a sale and if no buyer appears, the State orders the water released and the dam removed. I wish Ms. Auciello would get her facts straight. The law is readily available. Correct information is readily available. Printing misinformation does everyone a disservice.

I’ve replaced the scanned copy I made with a better PDF from the paper’s site.

23 April 2013: Update on Kelley’s petition for release from dam ownership

I_hate_meetings

Last night Ellis Percy and I attended the Jefferson Selectman’s meeting to see what they had to say about Kelley’s petition for release from dam ownership. Whitefield Selectmen Dennis Merrill and Frank Ober were also there as was Shlomit Auciello, reporter for the Lincoln County News. It appears the Jefferson Selectmen haven’t really given this matter a whole lot of thought yet; we did our best to fill them in on what’s happening and why, and what some of their options are. They have a public meeting scheduled for May 21st (details on where and what time at a later date). I expect an there will be an article in the Lincoln County News tomorrow.

Tonight I attended the Whitefield Selectman’s regularly scheduled meeting to see what was happening. There have been some new developments since last week:

  1. Dennis Merrill and Tony Marple are to meet with Paul Kelley tomorrow to discuss the dam situation in general and what his intentions are, specifically. Dennis assured me that the Clary Lake Association would get “equal time”, not that I’m worried.
  2. The Selectmen have wisely scheduled a public “informational meeting” to discuss Kelley’s petition and what it means for the town. The meeting is next Tuesday night the 30th of April at 7 PM, at the end of their regularly scheduled Selectman’s meeting which is held at the Whitefield Fire and Rescue building on Town House road, next to the Whitefield Town Office.
  3. I let them know that the Clary Lake Association will be preparing a formal offer on the dam at our upcoming board meeting this Saturday. I also explained that our offer does not preclude the town or anyone else from making an offer of their own, nor does it relieve the town of the necessity of holding a public hearing on the matter.

I’m hoping for a good turn out for next Tuesday’s informational meeting. I’ve put all the dates on the Clary Lake Association Activities & Events calendar, plus I’ll post a reminder here.

22 April 2013 KJ Article: Clary Lake foes take issue with DEP study

The anticipated KJ article has finally appeared in the paper this morning:

Clary Lake foes take issue with DEP study

Here’s a link to the online version:

http://www.kjonline.com/news/Clary-Lake-foes-take-issue-with-DEP-study.html

A couple of comments. First, I am not particularly surprised at Samantha Warren’s response to allegations that the bathymetric survey contains significant errors. She’s just a spokesperson making standard spokesperson type remarks though she should realize that using the “We’re experts” argument doesn’t usually hold up to scrutiny. I believe my comments have provided the necessary “strong technical evidence” necessary to open the study for revision.

Second, it’s time they took another picture, perhaps one showing the drained wetlands, or the virtually unusable State boat launch.

21 April 2013: Howard Nickerson: What price are we willing to pay?

red-winged-blackbird-thumbI was visiting Jane Chase this morning and she happened to mention an impassioned letter to the editor of the Lincoln County News that she’d read recently that did not ring a bell with me. Sadly, as much as I try and stay on top of everything going on these days, I just can’t and I rely heavily on other people to let me know about things of importance to Clary Lake and the water level petition. Jane found a copy on line and sent it to me. The letter to the editor turned out to be by none other than my good friend Howard Nickerson and was sent to the paper back in the middle of March. My apologies for just now getting it posted.

What price are we willing to pay?

Howard owns land up in the northeast end of the marsh on the east side of Clark’s Meadow Brook adjoining land of Sue McKeen and Butch Duncan. He’s a life-long conservationist.

20 April 2013: Added some more photos to the Chase Family Archive

chase_archive11Jane Chase was kind enough to loan me some more pictures to put up on the site, quite some time ago but I’ve been kinda busy and haven’t had a chance to scan them until tonight. I’ve added 6 new photographs to the Chase Family Archive; 4 of them appear to have been taken at the time of a decent sized flood event and includes one aerial photograph showing water pouring over the Clary Lake dam (see the picture at left). You can also see in it the original stone dam below the mill building which likely dates back to the late 1700s or early 1800s, the remains of which are there today.

chase_archive11Perhaps of the 6 photographs I added tonight, the one I like the most is this one at left,  a simple photo of the marsh with water lilies and marsh grass and nothing really special about it except for Chester’s hesitant handwriting scrawled across the top “Pond from float” and that Chester took this picture and clearly appreciated the beauty of the scene. I believe it was taken from his landing looking across the marsh at the Floge and Burns properties. Thanks again to Jane Chase for sharing these pictures.

20 April 2013: Upcoming Clary Lake Association Board Meeting

bored_meetingThe Board of the Clary Lake Association is holding their regularly scheduled spring board meeting this coming Saturday the 27th of April at 2 PM at the home of Ellis Percy. Agenda items include but are not limited to setting the date/time/place of the Annual meeting, selection of a nominating committee, fund raising ideas, and discussing the preparation of a formal offer on the dam. While the meeting is not open to the general public, Clary Lake Association members are welcome to sit in and watch the sausage being made.

If anyone is interested in taking a more active role in the Association, there are some great opportunities to do so and this is a great time! Never before have we needed an active and engaged membership than we do now. In addition to a Nominating committee (whose role is coming up with a slate of officers to be voted on at the Annual meeting) we will be also be forming a Membership committee and a Fund Raising committee.  Please contact the Clary Lake Association board if you’re interested in getting involved in any of these committees, or if you feel there is another way you can be of service.

19 April 2013: Launched my boat today, which I am naming the “Peggy Ann”

This was going to be a post about my thoughts regarding Paul Kelley’s comments to Heather Parent which he submitted earlier this week, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say. Maybe I will later, maybe I won’t. So right now I’ll talk about launching my boat.

Peggy Ann is the name my wife’s mother and most of her friends and relatives call her. I call her Margaret. Margaret is a wonderful name for a wife I think, but a lousy name for a boat don’t you agree?

boat_launching01Today seemed like the day to do it, it was warm enough and the wind and weather was right and sounded like it wouldn’t be very good again for a while. I’ve been ready to go for the past week (last year I put in on the 21st of  March). It took two of us pushing/lifting on the boat and one person standing in the back of it to get it off the trailer and into the water as there wasn’t even close to enough water to float it off. Thank goodness it’s a relatively light aluminum boat with a small motor. If it was a heavier fiberglass boat with a big motor, it would have been a lot more difficult. The State designed the ramp to require a minimum of 2.3′ of water over the foot of it but today there was only about 1.7″ of water over the end of it. I didn’t take any pictures but it must have looked a lot like this one at left though today the water was about a foot higher than in the picture. Now that it’s boating season again I will start including the “water over the foot of the ramp” data to the water level chart.

Also planning on putting thegeorge_and_leo_sailing Hobie Cat in the lake this year even though low water will make it risky to sail (it’s hairy enough as it is to sail it without having to worry about hitting rocks at 20 knots). But I figure I know where the ledges, shoals, and rocks are and I’m not going to let Paul Kelley and his low water regime rob me of another summer of sailing. We’ll be putting it in sometime in mid to late May, as soon as the water warms up a bit more and I can get a mooring set.

17 April 2013: Post followup thoughts on Petitioners Comments on the bathymetric survey

whitefield_shoreland_zoning_plan_large
I kinda wish I’d thought to include this section of the Whitefield Shoreland  Zoning Map produced by the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association in my Comments to DEP on the bathymetric survey. It clearly shows as all the wetlands that the State left off their plan. The legend refers to those greenish blue areas with the blue dots as “Wetlands in Shoreland Zone (NWI)” which I assume refers to the National Wetlands Inventory, which I cited (numerous time) in my comments. So I guess it’s covered. On the other side of the coin, you can see why Butch Duncan is a little irritated: that bright red boundary along his property is a Resource Protection Zone. Of course, that same Resource Protection Zone bounds all of Howard Nickerson’s property, all of Sue McKeen’s property and her daughter’s property, all of the Mathews, Shorey, and Weeks properties, and a little bit of the next lot south (Roever?) and we don’t hear them grousing about the water level being too high and arguing for the removal of the dam.

17 April 2013: Pleasant Pond Mill LLC Comments to DEP regarding the Bathymetric Survey, I think.

cliff-coyote_0At 10 minutes before 5 PM today, Melissa O’neal, Administrative assistant for Tony Buxton filed 4 documents with DEP and the Service List that were shortly before forwarded to her by Paul A. Kelley acting on behalf of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC… Got that? So while this communication has all the appearance of propriety for having passed through the Law offices of PretiFlaherty, this stuff was not prepared by a lawyer. I don’t think a lawyer even waved at it on the way by, more or less confirming my suspicions that Tony Buxton is counsel in name only for Pleasant Pond Mill LLC and Aquafortis Associates. Then again, none of my stuff is prepared by a lawyer…

So without further preamble, here they are. They consist of one 4 page letter to Heather Parent and 3 other documents apparently the results of the Freedom of Access action I mentioned a week or two ago. Document #2 (below) is so heavily redacted as to be virtually meaningless 🙂

  1. Kelley’s Comments to Heather Parent
  2. FOAA Document #1 (this link was initially boogered and has been repaired).
  3. FOAA Document #2
  4. FOAA Document #3

The only thing that jumps out at me right off is that the FOA request was supposedly brought by Aquafortis Associates LLC and if that is the case, then how did Pleasant Pond Mill LLC end up with the documents??? I’m confused!

I have not tried to decipher any of these documents. More to follow.

17 April 2013: Petitioner’s Comments on Clary Lake Procedural Order #5: Bathymetric Survey

16: 4-30-1967-bw-aerial-8pctThis afternoon I completed and emailed my comments on the bathymetric survey to the Service List. My response consists of 2 files, a 6 page letter and an appendix with 18 photographs. Because the appendix is large (2.3 megabytes) I’ve added it to Google Drive and have provided links below. At this point I doubt anyone else is going to submit comments on the survey but I remain prepared to be surprised. I’ve posted the documents at these links:

The photographs included in the appendix are also available for viewing and download (with descriptions somewhat truncated for online formatting) here:

It pained me to take issue with the Department’s survey results.

Google Drive Links if the above give you trouble:

17 April 2013: Tentative date set for Town of Whitefield Public Meeting

town-meeting-customThe Whitefield Selectmen at their regularly scheduled meeting last night tentatively scheduled a public meeting for 22 May 2013 at 7 PM at the Whitefield Fire and Rescue building next to the town office on Town House Road. The meeting is to comply with statutory requirements of the recently filed Petition for release from dam ownership, filed by Pleasant Pond Mill on 02 April. The town of Jefferson will be scheduling a similar public meeting, for the same reason. According to the statute (MRSA 38 §§ 901-908) the towns must hold a public meeting to “consider and act” on the issue of owning the dam. Note, this does not necessarily mean the towns have to vote Yea or Nae on owning the dam at this upcoming meeting, the warrant could just call for the formation of a committee to study the issue or to conduct a feasibility study, etc. The statute gives Pleasant Pond Mill LLC (PPM) up to 180 days to consult with various parties on taking over ownership of the dam at which time PPM has to report on the results of their activities. At that time they can if they wish apply for another 180 day extension to continue their search…

Ellis Percy, president of the Clary Lake Association and I attended the meeting last night. The Whitefield Selectmen meet every Tuesday night at the Whitefield Fire and Rescue building from 6 to 8 PM. The Jefferson Selectmen meet every other Monday at the Jefferson Town Office from 6 to 8 PM. Their next meeting is this coming Monday night. These and other important dates are included on the Clary Lake Association’s Events and Activities Calendar.

15 April 2013: Site Upgrade: Changes to log in and user registration system

I’ve implemented a new user log in/registration system in the hopes of resolving or eliminating the issues with the previous log in/registration system. I’ve tried to test “everything” and “everything” seems to be working as advertised but as you know, or may not know, software always has bugs. So don’t be surprised to encounter glitches. If you have any trouble getting onto or using the system, email me.

The obvious changes are to the look and feel of the log in, log out, register,  and profile pages. They now look like they’re part of the site. If you’re an existing user:

  1. If you forget your user name, you can now log in with your email address.
  2. If you forget your password, we’ll send you and email with a link so you can reset it.
  3. When you login, you’ll be returned to the News page rather than being dumped into the Dashboard “admin” screen.
  4. There’s now just a “Log In” or “Log Out” link on the side bar. Use the “admin” bar at the top of the page to get to the Dashboard or your profile page.
  5. Stop by your Profile page and if you haven’t already, please add your name.
  6. If you’re logged in but don’t have a black bar across top of the page with “Howdy <your name> on the right side and a Clary Lake Association menu on the left side, email me.

For new users registering for the first time:

  1. We’ve implemented the hated “Captcha” security road block. This is to thwart the bots and automated spammers that attempt to automate the log in process. Only carbon-based life forms please.
  2. There is now an email confirmation sent. You have to click on the link in that email to “activate” your account. Until you do, you won’t be able to log in. This is pretty much standard now days. I’m hoping it will discourage the people signing up with bogus email addresses. If not, there are some additional security hoops I can put up for new users to jump through.
  3. You can now pick your own password rather than having a temporary one emailed to you. Make it a good one please.

Again, if anyone has any problems, email me.

14 April 2013: Webcam Update

The java-based webcam software that runs the camera and uploads the pictures to the web server is fantastic software, well written, rock solid for the most part, and best of all, totally free. However, it sucks up a healthy amount of computer memory and adds a punishing 35% load factor to my computer (this has more to do with my computer being 15 years old than anything else). When I’m not trying to work, it isn’t a problem but when I’m competing with the webcam for slices of processor time, it’s a drag. Therefore until I upgrade my computer system (which upgrade is long over due) I’ll be running the webcam only when I’m not sitting in front of my computer… which lately, sadly, has been most of the time.

You’ll know when the webcam is operating by the picture that shows up in the sidebar. If the picture is like the one above, the webcam is offline.

13 April 2013: Fergusson’s Letter to the Editor in response to the Duncan article

Things have been so busy around here that I never bothered to look at the letter to the editor I wrote in regard the article about Frederick Duncan and his water level wishes. I sent my letter in back on the 1st of April. It appeared in the 04 April 2013 edition of the Lincoln County News. From the For What It’s Worth department, here it is:

Fergusson’s Letter to the Editor

13 April 2013: Low Water having an impact on wetland vegetation

water_lily_rhizome01
Imagine my surprise the other day when I went down to the lake to measure the water level and saw what looked like a foot floating in the water… well it turned out not to be a foot thank goodness. It is some kind of water lily rhizome, most likely that of the Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar Lutea) though I’ve never seen water_lily_rhizome02one that looks quite like this; then again, the other Yellow Pond Lily rhizomes I’ve seen were more mature, much larger and long, several feet or more in length. Perhaps this is what they look like when they’re young and just getting a foot-hold (pun intended) in the marsh. I’ll bet that’s it. Here’s a picture of the underside of the root.
yellow_pond_lily_rhizome03
It’s about the size of a child’s foot.

There have been quite a few of the Yellow Pond Lily rhizomes getting washing up on the shore, more evidence of the impact the low water conditions are having on the sensitive wetland habitat around Clary Lake. The low water conditions exposes the roots to the elements and ice and rain erodes the soil holding them in place. Then they wash into the stream and float away. I’ve posted pictures here before of these rhizomes. Here’s a picture of some that floated down stream to collect at the dam. I’m half inclined to see if these can be collected and replanted. Seriously.

11 April 2013: LCN Article: Clary Lake Dam owner seeks ability to sell

A Lincoln County News article on the Pleasant Pond Mill LLC Petition for release from dam ownership has appeared in this weeks paper. It does not appear to be online yet so I’ve scanned and posted it here:

Clary Lake Dam owner seeks ability to sell

It covers a lot of ground other than the petition for release from dam ownership including the recent release of the Division of Environmental Assessment’s minimum flows recommendation and the FOA request that as it turns out was filed by the mystery people behind Aquafortis Associates LLC.

Filing this under categories News, Petition News, and That Other Petition, a new category for… that other petition.

10 April 2013: Site News- New Comment System

comments
I was checking my web stats dashboard the other day and realized that a good deal of traffic on this site comes from people seeing posts on facebook and clicking on them to read more. In technical website parlance, facebook is therefore our biggest referrer. The only other referrer with any traffic to speak of is not surprisingly, Google search.

So I’m trying out a new comment system that allows people to use their facebook, twitter, or WordPress accounts to login to comment. If it turns out to be popular (or at the very least, not a problem) then we’ll keep it. If however it results in nuisance comments and other irrelevant garbage being posted and ends up wasting my time, it’s outa here. This option has been available to me for a while but I never really considered setting it up until I saw the referrer report. I am just now taking a look at it.

There are a few caveats: It seems to work with most browsers (I’ve tried it with 3 different ones) but you need to have your browser set to accept 3rd party cookies. C’est la vis. I don’t like it but that’s how it works.

Another downside (from my point of view) is that as long as you leave an email address and a name, you can leave a comment. This increases the opportunities for comments (which is good) but increases the likelihood that I’ll be dealing with bogus users posting bogus comments. New user comments won’t appear until approved so I’m not really worried inappropriate content appearing on the site, but as I mentioned above, if I find myself wasting time dealing with garbage comments, we’ll go back to the original system.

comments
<– So here’s what the new comment screen looks like. If you’re already logged into this site, nothing changes, comment as normal. If you’re not logged in, you can click on the WordPress, Twitter, or Facebook buttons to log in using those account credentials. If you’re logged in through Facebook say and you want to post from a different account (some of us have more than one…) there are Logout and Change links. From a security and privacy point of view, I’ve looked into this system and it appears satisfactorily secure and private. I also figure if you have a facebook or twitter account you’re probably not paranoid over privacy and security anyways 🙂 This is the same type of authentication mechanism used by news papers and other sites that encourage comments.

If anyone has any questions or encounters any problems with the new comment system, send me an email.

11 April 2013: A little more about inter-local agreements and a few samples

Back in 2007 when I became president of the Clary Lake Association and first got involved in trying to resolve the Clary Lake dam issue, Dana Murch of the DEP sent me 3 inter-local agreements from towns around Maine to look at. I dug them out of the file they were in yesterday, scanned them, and have posted them to Google Drive:

They vary in complexity from the Belgrade Lakes 4 page inter-local agreement between the towns of Belgrade and Rome to the Gardiner New Mills Dam 14 page inter-local agreement between the City of Gardiner and the towns of Litchfield and Richmond. None of them happen to involve a non-municipal 3rd party such as a lake association but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

I remember reading about the flap surrounding Sabattus Pond back in 1999-2000, it caused quite a bit of controversy. Here’s an article from the Lewiston Sun Journal from October 13, 1999:

State: Agree on Sabattus Pond Costs or dam will be opened

I suspect that if the towns of Whitefield and Jefferson decide to look into this kind of arrangement that they could get assistance from the State in preparing an inter-local agreement and of course, the Clary Lake Association would be happy to participate.

10 April 2013: Pleasant Pond Mill LLC petition for release from dam ownership UPDATE

I went to the Whitefield Selectman’s meeting last night to listen to what they had to say about the Clary Lake dam issue. They discussed among other things the need for the town to hold a public meeting to “consider and act” on the issue of dam ownership within 60 days of being notified of the filing of the petition (April 1st). Per the statute, both the town of Whitefield and the town of Jefferson have to hold these public meetings. Tentative dates were discussed as was the fact that 60 days (now 50) isn’t a lot of time.

At issue is whether or not the town (or towns, with an interlocal agreement)  should own the dam, with or without a maintenance and operations agreement with the Clary Lake Association. The Selectmen agreed that they’d be contacting their counterparts  in Jefferson to discuss this.

The DEP will also further define what constitutes the “costs of transfer” which at a minimum need to be borne by or at least shared by the new dam owner. The actual wording of the statute is:

38 §906. PROPERTY TRANSFER PROVISIONS

1. Compensation. A dam owner is not prohibited from requesting compensation for the transfer of a dam pursuant to this article. The department may not issue a water release order pursuant to section 905 to a dam owner who has refused to transfer the dam to a person willing to assume ownership of the dam because that person refused to compensate the dam owner for the property. The department may not refuse to issue the order if the dam owner requested only payment or a share in payment of the costs of transfer.

“Costs of transfer” to me means the fees to have a title search done, a deed prepared, and the cost of recording it. That’s the beauty of this statute: Anybody can afford to buy a dam 🙂

It was also mentioned that the DEP has determined that the PPM petition is NOT complete as filed. Apparently DEP has questions about who owns what and wants supporting documentation of dam ownership and title. No doubt this has something to do with questions the DEP has over the ability of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC has to meet the provisions of the Statute regarding what property and property rights are to be transferred to a new owner. This should be interesting.