Yearly Archives: 2014

06 May 2014: PPM’s Proposed Water Level Management Plan

The first milestone of the Clary Lake Water Level Order was the May 1st submission of a Water Level Management Plan (WLMP). I was originally told by a DEP staff person that the WLMP was not going to be released until it had been “reviewed and approved” by the Department. Apparently I was misinformed as according to Project Manager Beth Callahan who I spoke to earlier today, the document is in deed “public” information. According to Beth Callahan, the Department will review the submission and issue a Procedural Order (of the sort we’re used to seeing) to the Service List with the Department findings. She didn’t have any idea when that was likely to happen.

The document is 13 pages and I’ve only had the time to glance over it. However, from what I’ve read so far, I’m guessing DEP won’t be “approving” it anytime soon. I will refrain from further comment at this time until I have had a chance to read it over more carefully.

Proposed Water Level Management Plan

02 May 2014: About that Water Level Management Plan…

If you’re eagerly awaiting the water level management plan now that the deadline for its submission has passed, you’re not alone! Several people have asked “where’s the plan?” Careful reading of the specification for the Water Level Management Plan in the water level order suggests we should not hold our breath waiting for the plan. From the Order (emphasis added):

5. The owner of the dam shall submit a Water Level Management Plan to the Department for review and approval no later than May 1, 2014.”

So the plan needs to be reviewed by DEP and approved before it is accepted and before we get a copy. No telling how long this could take. Further on it says (emphasis added):

The final Water Level Management Plan shall be made available by the owner of the dam to all littoral and riparian landowners for review upon request. A copy of the final plan shall be distributed to the Town of Jefferson and the town of Whitefield.

So the Towns will only get a copy when it’s been approved and no where does it say Kelley has to actually provide a copy to anyone who asks for it, only that it shall be “made available for review upon request” and at that only to littoral and riparian landowners. It remains to be seen how Mr. Kelley will choose to interpret the above language.

So patience is the word of the day. I’m sure it will be a fine plan, and worth waiting for. When the plan has been approved (we’ll let you know) it will be available at your respective Town offices.

01 May 2014: April Water Level Chart archived

3 waterlevelchart_April2014April brought the highest water levels we’ve seen in 3 years due in large part to melting snow and high runoff as a result of frozen ground though we ended the month with only 2.77″ of rain, well below the average about 4.39″.  The water level started out around -40″ below the top of the dam on the 1st of the month and got as high as -18.6″ below the top of the dam on April 17th. It has been falling since then and ended the month at -29.3″. The dam’s gate has been wide open all month.

The deadline for submitting the Water Level Management Plan called for in the Water Level Order was today. We can only assume Mr. Kelley met the deadline. Stay tuned.

28 April 2014: DRAFT Branch Pond Water Level Order issued!!

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has issued a DRAFT water level order for Branch Pond located in Palermo and China. There is, as usual, a 5 day comment period ending this coming May 5th. This is especially good news considering everyone thought that DEP would hold off on issuing the the Branch Pond water level order until the outcome of the appeal of the Clary Lake water level was known. Well, obviously, everyone thought wrong.

The Branch Pond water level petition was originally filed back in 2008 but was put on hold for 3 years. I’ve been following the Branch Pond petition since it became active again back in December 2012.

DRAFT Branch Pond Water Level Order

Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association launches their Watershed Survey

DLWA_NPS_Training_26April2014Back around the beginning of April I posted about how the Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association (DLWA) is gearing up to conduct a Watershed Survey. To kick it off they scheduled a workshop to train volunteers how to identify, describe, and characterize typical non-point sources of pollution. When I learned about the training I contacted Garrison Beck, Senior Program Manager at DLWA to see about sitting in on the training. He thought it was a fine idea. The workshop was scheduled for April 26th at the DLWA headquarters over on Damariscotta Lake.

Yesterday Colin Caissie and I attended the training session. There were a couple of dozen people there including a number of technical folks from DEP and some other DLWA members who had been previously trained. It started at 9AM and we spent the first 2.5 hours being lectured to about types of erosion and typical mitigation techniques, and then we broke out into groups of 3-4 volunteers and a technical lead person and then headed out for 3+ hours of field work. We headed for home a little after 3 PM having.

A non-point-source (NPS) watershed survey is all about locating and categorizing soil erosion- type, size, severity, etc., and making recommendations for how to go about mitigating it. It was a totally worthwhile experience and I’m glad I went. I told Garrison that when/if I got a chance in the next month I’d come down and spend a few hours working on the survey. They need all the help they can get given the size of their task: Damariscotta Lake watershed is about 29,700 acres (46.5 square miles) compared to Clary Lake’s 6,272 acres (9.8 square miles) and they have THOUSANDS of lakefront properties to evaluate whereas we have 108. A daunting task. Their goal is to get the entire watershed surveyed by the end of May and they’re going to need a lot of help to meet that goal. I’ll let folks know if/when I decide to go down and help out in case anyone wants to go along for the ride and learn something about identifying, categorizing, and mitigating non-point source pollution sites.

I had hoped to learn more about phosphorus transport mechanisms. I guess I’m going to have to do some more research on my own. The Clary Lake Association conducted a watershed survey and we’re gearing up to conduct an update later this year. So far there are about 10 Association members signed up to work on the survey. If anyone wants to get involved in this initiative, send me an email or use our Contact Form.

Lake Water Quality Monitoring Resumes in 2014

David Hodsdon and Jack Holland water testingDavid Hodsdon and Jack Holland have resumed lake water quality monitoring as of last Friday, the 25th of April. This is about average- they like to get some data in April if at all possible. In addition to the regular secchi disk and dissolved oxygen data they also took a water sample for phosphorus testing. Jack didn’t have his boat in the water yet so I took them out in my boat. I took a few pictures; the wind was blowing about 10 miles an hour and it was pretty chilly! Official test results will be posted to the Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page in a few days.

The phosphorus data is particularly important to collect but getting a water sample analyzed by the State costs $25 a pop. Because of the cost, David and Jack have taken only Algae bloomabout 3 samples a year. We’re experimenting with a much cheaper do-it-yourself phosphorus test kit but the jury is still out on whether it will be sufficiently accurate to be useful. Monitoring phosphorus levels is important because it is a direct indicator of the likelihood of the lake experiencing an algae bloom. Most of you are aware that we’ve been having late summer/early fall algae blooms for the past 3 years in large part due to lower water levels. The picture at left shows dead blue-green algae floating on the surface last fall. You’ll find more pictures in the Fall 2013 album.

I’ll be filling in for David Hodsdon for a few months this summer while he’s on vacation and I’ve decided to get my Volunteer Water Monitor Certification as well.

24 April 2014 Lincoln County News: Jefferson Selectmen Say ‘No’ To Being Clary Lake Dam Backup

Paul KelleyPaul Kelley appeared before the Jefferson Selectmen last Tuesday night to see if they’d be willing to take on the role of secondary designee of the Clary Lake dam. They said no. I didn’t bother to go to the meeting, having attended a similar meeting with the Whitefield Select Board the previous week (which I wrote about here) but Lincoln County News reporter Dominik Lobkowicz was there and he has reported on the meeting in this week’s Lincoln County News:

Jefferson Selectmen Say ‘No’ To Being Clary Lake Dam Backup

The Selectmen’s decision came as no surprise to anyone. Kelley has also extended his offer to the Clary Lake Association. The Association Board is currently considering a response to his request.

[Local Copy]

17 April 2014 Lincoln County News: Clary Lake Dam representative says he’d ‘bail’ if Whitefield assumes responsibilities

Paul Kelley attended the Whitefield Selectman’s meeting last Tuesday night to see if the Town would be willing to assume responsibility for the operation of the Clary Lake Dam and its water control features in the event of an emergency. You may recall that finding a designee is was requirement “H” of the Water Level Management Plan called for in the Clary Lake Water Level Order. The Order suggested that such secondary designees may include but are not limited to the Town of Jefferson, the Town of White​f​ield  or the Clary Lake Association. As usual, Lincoln County News reporter Kathy Onorato was there covering the excitement:

Clary Lake Dam representative says he’d ‘bail’ if Whitefield assumes responsibilities

Continue reading →

16 April 2014: Clary Webcam Operational Again

The Clary Webcam is back in operation, the weather is warm enough to mostly keep my window from fogging up. Experience has shown this webcam system to be obstinate and unreliable so if you click on the link and see and old image, a broken image, or no image at all, don’t be surprised! Also, the software also uses a lot of system resources and I’m likely to shut it down when I’m actually working on my computer. For that matter, sometimes it just shuts itself down without notice. That said, I’ll try and keep it going as much as possible except when I don’t, and at night. I may see if I can find a reliable wireless standalone outdoor weather-proof camera later this year.

Official Ice-Out Date: 14 April 2014

David Hodsdon makes the official determination of ice-in and ice-out on Clary Lake and according to him, ice-out occurred sometime between 4 and 5 pm on April 14th. His criteria for ice-out is all the ice out of all the coves. He also notes that the loons were back on the 12th, a fact I can confirm from my own observations. Even though it seems like a late spring, a look at the ice-in and ice-out records going back to 2001 show that this year’s date is about average.

It sure did go out fast once it started to go.

 

11 April 2014: The ice is melting!

img_20140411_154300Spring has arrived! I’m sure of it! Less than a week ago there were people ice fishing on the lake and at the time I speculated that it would be at least 3 weeks before the ice went out. Today, there’s a significant amount of open water on the north shore of the lake and the remaining ice looks very gray indeed. You can see the open water in the picture at left. What a difference a week makes! Now I’m thinking the ice will be gone in another week or less. We’ll see. There is open water around the edge of much of the lake. racket. I plan to launch my kayak this weekend and see if I can make it up to the channel. You can also see piles of white here and there around the lake where the wind has driven the ice up on to the shore. I recall this happening on my shoreline early one winter some years ago, the ice actually piled up 4′-5′ thick and it made an awful racket!

You may have notice that the lake level is higher now than it has been for some time. In fact, it’s only been this high 2 other times in the last 3 years. As high as it seems however, it’s still 20″ below the top of the dam. Though the gate is open, the ground where not frozen is saturated and most precipitation runs right off. We’ve received only 1.21″ of rain so far this month but the lake came up 20″ for a runoff multiplier of about 16x. I think a more reasonable multiplier would be 10x as snow melt accounts for about 7″ of that rise.

There is almost 3.5′ of water over the foot of the ramp at the State Boat Launch, more than a foot more than the design minimum so those of you so inclined to launch your boats this spring shouldn’t have too much trouble though don’t expect the water level to remain high this summer. We’ll see what the fall brings.

I posted the above picture in the Winter 2014 album. I should have posted it in the Spring 2014 album, but there isn’t one yet. I’ll get right on that.

05 April 2014: Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association gearing up for a Watershed Survey

Jack Holland forwarded me a copy of a Damariscotta Lake Watershed Association (DLWA) notice about an upcoming workshop they’re giving intended to train volunteers to identify and categorize Non-Point-Source (NPS) pollution sites. The end goal is performing a Watershed Survey for Damariscotta Lake, a truly daunting task give the size of Damariscotta Lake’s wateshed. The Clary Lake Association performed such a watershed survey for Clary Lake back in 2001 (see our Clary Lake Watershed Survey Basemap) and at last year’s Annual Meeting we formed an ad-hoc committee to work to update that survey in the near future.  Some of our NPS committee members will need some training too so I’ve written to Garrison Beck to see if we can participate in the training. I’ll let you know what I find out. Here’s the email notice:

Do you want to help protect the water quality of Damariscotta Lake? Then join us on Saturday, April 26th from 9am – 3pm at DLWA for training needed to be part a team that will find and locate harmful sources of pollution.   

After the training, you will work with DLWA staff and other volunteers to conduct a complete survey of the Damariscotta Lake Watershed looking for sites of non-point source pollution. In brief, non-point source pollution is all pollution in the watershed that cannot be attributed to a single point (ex. a pipe). This pollution comes mostly in the form of erosion and runoff from the land, which carries nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen into the lake and its tributaries.

Our watershed is over 30 square miles and we need your help! Your job would entail walking the near-shore area on Damariscotta Lake and driving watershed roads looking for sites of erosion and runoff. Our goal is to complete the entire survey within one month of the training!

If you are interested in attending the training or assisting in any other way, please contact Garrison Beck at 207-549-3836 or garrison@dlwa.org.

 

 

02 April 2014: Water Level Measurements Resumed

2 waterlevelchart_february2014I stopped making water level measurements back on February 6th as it became just too much trouble to continue the daily grind, plus I got sick and then there was the cold… and the interminable snow storms… and did I mention it was cold? Anyways, with what passes for Spring this year now apparently firmly in place and with the snow disappearing and the ice around the edges melting, I’ve resumed making water level measurements as of yesterday, April 1st. No fooling!

The lake is now about 2″ higher than it was on February 6th when I left off. Judging from the appearance of the ice around the shore, the lake spent most of the last 2 winter months hovering between 40″ and 48″ below the top of the dam even though the dam’s gate has been wide open. I don’t think the level ever fell as low as it did during the winters of 2012 and 2013 when it dropped to 5′ below the top of the dam. When I left off making level measurements I also left off keeping track of precipitation. I plan to scarf that information for the last 2 months from the Weather Underground site and update my database so we can continue to monitor monthly and yearly precipitation totals.

30 March 2013: Avian Haven’s 2013 Year End Report

The folks at Avian Haven have completed their 2013 year end report and as usual it is a visually stunning and inspiring document making for a fascinating read. Dianne Winn and Marc Payne cared for 1556 birds of all sorts last year, 30 of them carry-overs from the year before. Their dedication and commitment to bird rehabilitation is commendable, and well worthy of both your appreciation and support. Year end reports as far back as 2004 are available on their website:

Avian Haven Year End Reports

We’ve posted about Avian Haven before including Avian Haven 2013 Bird Pictures. You also might be interested in “liking” their facebook page:

Avian Haven Facebook Page

23 March 2014: Update on Kelley’s Petition for release from dam ownership or water level maintenance

Remember Paul Kelley’s second Petition for release from dam ownership or water level maintenance, filed back on September 27, 2013? Well probably not! Most people have forgotten about it, and with good reason. After all, it is perfectly clear that Kelley has no intention of selling the dam and equally obvious that he isn’t going to get his desperately wished-for breach order. Nonetheless his petition is still alive, and the clock is ticking: he has until this Wednesday, March 26th, to either conclude the petition by filing a consultation report with the Department of Environmental Protection or file for his one-time, 180 day extension as provided for by statute.

You’d think Kelley was already busy enough with the water level order and it’s looming deadlines to contend with, the upcoming land use mediation to prepare for, and his pending administrative appeal to worry about, that he’d drop this petition charade to concentrate on more important things. However, I fully expect that he will request the 180 day extension just to keep his petition alive for another 6 months. Check back here in a few days to see if I’m right.

Update: 26 March 2014: So I was right.

20 March 2014: Order For A Stay Of Civil Proceedings

The Attorney General’s office sent me a copy of an Order for a Stay of Civil Proceedings in the matter of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC and Aquafortis Associates LLC v. Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Docket No. AP-14-1. The parties jointly requested this stay so that they can pursue mediation under the Land Use Mediation Program pursuant to Title 5 §3341. What this means in ordinary speak is that the administrative appeal of the Department water level order is being put on hold while the parties engage in mediated discussions in an attempt to resolve this matter. At the conclusion of mediation the results, or lack thereof, will be reported back to Superior Court.  Continue reading →

15 March 2013: Patricia Aho, Commissioner of the DEP on the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program

I was pleased to see the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, Patricia Aho, recognize the Maine Volunteer Lakes Monitoring Program on her official blog. Jack Holland brought this to my attention the other day with the comment “I would agree with the “trained” statement, but question the “provided with equipment” statement. The Clary Lake Association has been a participating member of the VLMP since the very start of the program back in 1975. See our Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program page for more information.

December 30, 2013
Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program

I was excited to meet with Scott Williams and Roberta Hill of the Maine Volunteer Lakes Monitoring Program (VLMP) earlier this month. Often noted nationally as the gold-standard of citizen lakes monitoring, VLMP is a network of over 1,000 volunteers located across the state that have been trained and provided with equipment to collect data from Maine lakes. Their scientific data on water quality indicators is critical assistance for DEP. We cannot do our work without VLMP and rely on their quality science, passion and training to ensure thousands of volunteers (some of whom count their service in decades!) are engaged and eager to assist each year. With a very small budget, the work of VLMP is an outstanding service to Maine by being at the forefront of keeping our lakes healthy and safe. DEP is proud to support VLMP’s work to protect Maine’s lakes and look forward to continuing this successful partnership.

via Commissioner’s Corner, Office of the Commissioner, Maine DEP.

06 March 2014 Kennebec Journal: Owner of Clary Lake Dam in Whitefield files suit in court

There is an article about Pleasant Pond Mill LLC’s appeal of the Clary Lake water level order in today’s Kennebec Journal, written by Paul Koenig. Mr. Koenig interviewed Paul Kelley for the story. One statement in particular is worth quoting here:

“He said his company filed suit in superior court instead of with the appeals board because it wanted a final ruling on the dispute.”

This indicates that this really is the last stand for Kelley and that an appeal to the Maine Supreme Court is not in the cards. When he loses this appeal, he’ll be dead in the water. What a pleasant thought that is.

Owner of Clary Lake Dam in Whitefield files suit in court

[Archived copy]:
Owner of Clary Lake Dam in Whitefield files suit in court