DEP has come to the conclusion that Paul Kelley failed to satisfy the Public Notice requirements of the statute and have given him the option of either voluntarily withdrawing his petition now or waiting for the Department to officially dismiss it at their upcoming consultation 180 days from when the petition was filed. At least that is how I understand it. Kelley has been notified and a letter has been sent to the towns of Whitefield and Jefferson. I’ll post it here as soon I get my hands on a copy.
Here’s a copy:
Letter from DEP Regarding Deficient Petition
Anyone expecting Paul Kelley to voluntarily withdraw his petition don’t know Paul Kelley. I predict he’ll fight this decision. To do otherwise would not be in character.
Ironically, I inquired of Kathy Howatt at the very start of this fiasco whether or not Kelley had satisfactorily complied with the statute’s public notice requirement. At that time the thinking at the Department was that the requirement for public notice could be met with a single notice being published in a newspaper not more than 30 days before filing the petition. Kelley did this, posting a notice in the Kennebec Journal on April 1st 2013, one day before filing the petition with the DEP. Now it appears the Department is of the opinion that no, ALL the public notices need to be made before the filing of the petition, which it the way I interpret the law. Here’s the verbiage from the statute. You decide:
2. Public notice. Not more than 30 days before filing a petition, the dam owner shall publish notice of intent to file a petition under this article at least once in a newspaper circulated in the area in which the dam and impoundment are located. The dam owner shall notify by certified mail the persons listed in section 902, subsection 3, paragraphs B, C and D. The dam owner shall notify abutting property owners as provided in subsection 3. The dam owner shall also make a good faith effort to notify local, regional and statewide private organizations interested in fisheries, wildlife, conservation, recreation and environmental issues whose interests may be affected by the dam.
I had hoped DEP would dismiss his petition on the basis that he lacked sufficient right, title, and interest in the dam to satisfy the statutory requirements for it’s transfer, but I’ll take this dismissal on a procedural basis if that’s all I can get. If Kelley resubmits his petition, he’ll still have that title hurdle clear.
Just a quick reminder that the Town of Jefferson is holding their public meeting to consider and act on the issue of dam ownership tomorrow night at 6 PM at the Jefferson Village School Gymnasium. Unlike the Town of Whitefield’s May 30th meeting which is being held solely for the purpose of addressing the dam issue, Jefferson’s meeting serves a dual purpose: residents will also be voting on school budget issues. The the dam question is #1 on the agenda and is worded as follows:
Jefferson has sent out the warrant for the upcoming special town meeting to be held on Tuesday, 21 May 2013 at the Jefferson Village School Gymnasium at 6 PM. The article on the Clary Lake dam is #1 on the agenda and the wording is short and sweet:
A month ago I installed some software that replaces the built-in user management functions on the site (user log ins, registrations, and lost passwords) with similar functions with enhanced features and functionality but it turned out to be a bit buggy so I uninstalled it. Now it appears they’ve fixed the bugs (or claimed they have) so I’m giving it another try. Here’s the 
Kelley finally closed the dam’s gate which has been wide open since last October 13th. Must have been done sometime today though I suppose it could have been late yesterday afternoon. I’m not sure what inspired this seemingly magnanimous gesture on Kelley’s part: concern over the drained wetlands? Not likely. Worry for lost wildlife habitat? Nah. Sadness over the unusable status of the State boat launch? Nope. You can be sure whatever reasons motivated him they were selfish and self-serving. He’ll get no thanks from me. The lake is down 56″ below the top of the dam and the crime has been committed. I suppose we should be grateful that Kelley has closed the gate but I’m still angry with him for draining the lake in the first place. Call me ungrateful but in my book it’s too little, too late.
Yet another article has appeared in this week’s Lincoln County News about Kelley’s request for a new hearing and my objection to it. Seems like every week there’s something in one paper or another. Shlomit Auciello is doing a pretty good job of reporting on a complicated and confusing situation:
We’ve finally gotten around to putting current Clary Lake water monitoring data online. It’s a subset of the data collected by David Hodsdon and Jack Holland and will be updated roughly every 2 weeks from early spring through late fall or as often as David and Jack get around to it. What’s online now includes all the data from 2012 and what’s been collected so far in 2013. That little thumbnail at left is what a secchi disk looks like- it’s used to measure the transparency of the water.
If the Whitefield Selectmen are going to asking the voters of the town to consider purchasing the Clary Lake dam, they’re entitled to know how much it’s going to cost, right? You know, the price. That’s a reasonable request, no? Well to that end, the Selectmen handed a letter to Paul Kelley at the 30 April 2013 Selectmen’s meeting, asking just that question. They asked for a response by the 10th of April. Many of us were there, that was the night the Selectmen held their 
I have just sent my response to Kelley’s request for a new hearing to the Service List. It’s short. DEP has already defended their decision to conduct the bathymetric survey and have decisively ruled on Kelley’s repeated objections to it. Kelley apparently can’t take no for an answer. DEP was not willing to revisit and revise the survey at my request and I see no reason now why they should approve Kelley’s request to reopen the hearing which would only waste valuable time, resources, and money.
I’ve received a few questions from people about how, when, and under what circumstances the Clary Lake Dam Fund monies will be spent. I’ll try and clear that up in this posting. First, I’m happy to report that Bill Donovan from over on the west shore of Clary Lake donated $100 to the Dam Fund bringing the balance of the fund to $1402 which is almost 1/3 of the way to our $5000 goal. Have no fear, when we are close to achieving our $5000 goal we will simply raise it; the $5000 goal was just an initial target. Bill’s donation was a good-faith gesture; he and a few other people that have donated money have said they will donate more money when the time comes to actually spend it. Yeah.
Yet another Lincoln County News article in this week’s paper, this one by Dominik Lobkowicz about last Tuesday night’s Whitefield Selectmen’s meeting. Good article. Worth reading. I was at that meeting along with Sue McKeen. We didn’t talk, we just listened. The theme of this post is “Confusion” which is what that thumbnail at left is supposed to represent. The article isn’t online so I scanned it and the photo of Mr. Kelley didn’t come out too well. Sorry.
With all the doomy and gloomy petition stuff I’ve been posting of late, it is a real pleasure (that’s me smiling at left) to be able to provide this update on the Clary Lake Association fund raising initiative. Don and Lucy Norman of Jefferson stopped by the other day to talk to me about making a donation to the Clary Lake Dam Repair fund. They hoped that by putting some “seed money” in the fund that it would encourage others to contribute. This afternoon, Lucy called to tell me that she had just dropped a check off with our Treasurer, Linda Gallion.
Shlomit Auciello has written another excellent article for this week’s Lincoln County News on the ongoing Clary Lake Water Level Petition. The in-depth article covers the matter of Kelley’s recent request for an extension of the deadline for comments and my objection to it and quotes my letter to the DEP objecting to the request almost in it’s entirety. The Clary Lake Water Level Petition story has certainly arrived, it is now entertainment for the masses. People will be clamoring for the next installment 🙂
I have just submitted my comments on the Clary Lake Assessment (minimum flows recommendation) which was one of the two documents included in the ADDENDUM to the bathymetric survey released by the Department on 09 April 2013. I’m not sure my comments are really worthy of a BAM! thumbnail but it seemed appropriate. This is the 3rd submission this week. A short 3-word summary of my position on the new Clary Lake Assessment: Almost Good Enough:
Today is the due date for final comments on the bathymetric survey. I’ve just submitted mine. Not a lot to say about this. As I state in my letter, I stand by my original comments but agree with the Department decision that putting more time and energy into this is not warranted at this time. There are bigger fish to fry.
Some of you may have noticed some odd behavior on the site in the past 24 hours including getting dumped into your profile page when you thought you were going to look at say, water level charts. It turns out that an upgrade of a slightly buggy piece of software turned out to be even more buggy, and what’s worse, the bugs didn’t show up till the next day. Hate when that happens. Anyways, despite the fact that it provided some nice functionality, I’ve uninstalled it. You shouldn’t notice anything different except for the look and feel of the log in, log out, and forgot your password pages.