Yearly Archives: 2016

19 September 2016: Site Notice

Off and on for the past 24 hours or so one of the web sites on our web server was under a socalled “Brute Force Amplification Attack” by someone with an IP address originating from inside Russia. While only one site hosted on the server was under direct attack, service was was at least partially disrupted for all sites hosted on the server. If you’ve had trouble getting to our site last night or this morning, now you know why. Fortunately the attack was detected before the target site was compromised, so no permanent damage was done or data compromised. This kind of activity is unfortunately all too common now days.

To thwart the attack we have temporarily blocked incoming and outgoing connections to the web server from all locations outside the continental US and Canada. Unfortunately has had the side effect of breaking some of our site functionality. In particular, the weather widget in the sidebar (it actually gets it’s data from a place in England of all places) and a few other back end systems are not functioning yet. We should have full functionality restored by sometime tonight.

Never a dull minute.

18 September 2016: NIDIS Drought Meter Now Online

sev I don’t need to tell anybody that we need rain. For some time now we’ve been experiencing SEVERE drought conditions around Clary Lake and SEVERE to EXTREME drought conditions in and around New England, depending on locale. I found this neat CGI script at the National Integrated Drought Information System site that provides up-to-date drought information and decided to put it on our website. Enter one of Clary Lake’s 2 Zip Codes (Whitefield o4353 or Jefferson 04348) for current drought conditions here. For current drought conditions in your area, enter your own zip code (or search for one). You can reset it with the reset button to check different areas. It works for the entire country.

Once you’ve entered a zip code, you’ll find some useful information by following the links provided under the Drought Meter graphic. The National Integrated Drought Information System is a great site to poke around. I’ve added it to our Links & Resources page.

I have put up a Drought Meter page. Check it out. You’ll find the page linked under the Weather Main Menu heading.

14 September 2016: ClaryCam2 Out of Service

ClaryCam2 Out of Service

During that thunderstorm we had last Sunday, David Hodsdon’s webcam got juiced by lightning shortly after the webcam picture at left was uploaded to the website. The power adapter fried and needs to be replaced. Hopefully that’s all that happened and the camera is still OK. In any case, ClaryCam2 is off line until further notice.

12 September 2016: Price Reduced!

40 Enos Lane, Jefferson Maine

According to recently posted real estate listings on the Zillow Real Estate site and at the Trulia Real Estate site, the price on the Arthur Enos home and property on Clary Lake has been reduced from the original summer 2014 asking price of $875,000 to a more reasonable but still breathtaking $765,000. The real estate listings include a bunch of recently taken pictures. So much for Art’s “I don’t really care if I sell it or not” remark. I assume now he still doesn’t care if he sells it, but at a lower price. According to Zillow, the property was originally listed in July 2014 (see “22 July 2014: Enos Property on Clary Lake for sale“) and was just taken off the market a few months ago. It was relisted at the lower price just a few days ago. I wish Mr. Enos all the luck selling his property.

09 September 2016: AquaFortis Associates Files Objections to DEP Discovery Requests

You may recall back on August 2nd, DEP served Petitioner AquaFortis Associates LLC with their requests for discovery. Then on September 1st AquaFortis Associates filed a consented-to motion regarding various deadlines (see Petitioner Files Consented-To Motion Regarding Deadlines). In that filing they made clear their intention to object to (some or all of?) DEP’s requests for discovery by August 31st. On August 30th attorneys for AquaFortis Associates did indeed file 3 separate motions objecting to 1) DEP’s Request for Production of Documents, 2) their Deposition Notice, and 3) their Request for Discovery of Third Parties. The following day on September 1st they filed a Motion for Additional Evidence and Discovery. I received copies of all these filings a few days ago and have finally finished my review of them. I understand a conference with the court to address these issues has been set for October 4th. Continue reading →

09 September 2016: CLA Membership Goal Reached!

[dropcap]Within[/dropcap] just 2 days of posting about our membership goal, we’ve added the additional 11 members needed to bring our total to 100, our membership goal for this year! It’s not just a goal, it’s an all-time record. The memberships consisted of 3 renewals and 8 NEW MEMBERS, people who have either never been Association members, or haven’t been for a long time. I wish to thank those people who stepped up, and apologize to those whose arms I twisted… a little bit. I never doubted that we’d reach our goal, I just didn’t anticipate the enthusiastic and supportive response to that post.

Just because we’ve reached our goal is no reason to get complacent. There are still a dozen or more people who were members last year who have not renewed their memberships this year, and I sincerely hope they will all renew soon. Just because we’ve reached OUR goal shouldn’t stop them or anyone else from joining the Association. There is strength in numbers. We’re on a roll folks, let’s keep it going.

In Memory of Christopher Gillette

Christopher Gillette
1955 – 2016

It is with sadness that I inform you of the passing of Christopher Gillette this past August 12th. Chris was a long-time and loyal Clary Lake Association Member and a personal friend of mine with whom I have corresponded at length in recent years about Clary Lake. He will be missed by many. The Board, and on behalf of the Clary Lake Association, wishes to offer our condolences to his wife Leslie Gillette, his 2 daughters Fallon and Alexandra, his father Thomas Gillette, his brother Baxter Gillette, and his cousin, Kate Seba, all of whom are Clary Lake Association members. Chris had just completed the construction of a new home on Clary Lake. Chris was 61.

08 September 2016: DEP Administrative Record Now Available Online

On August 17th DEP filed their Administrative Record with the Lincoln County Superior Court in preparation for moving forward with their defense of the Clary Lake Water Level Order. I wrote about this back on September 1st (see: DEP files Administrative Record with Superior Court). The State’s filing consisted of a 20 page document that listed the descriptions of 264 items totalling 345 megabytes of material, which are all included on a CD. I was particularly interested in getting a copy of the CD partly because it seemed like every other document had my name associated with it, and partly because there were a goodly number of documents listed that I do NOT already have in my files, primarily internal Department and Interagency communications, and correspondence between DEP staff and Paul Kelley that was not shared with the Service List. Continue reading →

07 September 2016: Miscellaneous Site Updates

I was using my Nexus 7 tablet earlier today to poke around this website and was shocked and amazed to see how difficult the menu system was to navigate using a touch screen on a tablet or phone. The problem was that the top level menu items for the most part all had links associated with them which makes it challenging-to-impossible to select a sub-item on a touch screen. I mean, good luck. This is not a problem with a Mac or PC using a mouse because you can hover over the menu heading and then click on the link you want in the drop down menu

FIXED: now only those main menu headings with no submenus (currently only Home and Branch Pond) have links associated with them. The rest require you to select a page from the drop down list. To get to this news page for example, you can touch (or hover over) the News main menu heading and then touch (or click) the first item on the list, News and Comment. I don’t think I dropped any pages in the process, but if you see something missing, let me know.

While on the subject of site updates/changes, I’ve also added the current water level to the top right side of the screen, right above the search box. Because I can. It gets updated automagically whenever I update the water level charts which is usually daily around 7:30 am this time of year. The lake level is currently at -67.80″ below the top of the dam. You’ve never seen it this low.

07 September 2016: Making Progress Toward Our Membership Goal

We are very close to reaching this year’s Membership goal of 100 members. Currently at 89, many of this year’s members are new members to the Association: they have either never been members before, or they have not been members for a long time. In either case, this is a great trend that I hope to see continue! However, there are a number of people who were members last year or the year before who have NOT renewed their membership yet. We need all the support we can get, now more than ever, so if you are one of those people who has intended to renew your membership but just hasn’t found the time yet, please do so soon! It is important! If everyone who was a member last year would renew again, we would not only meet our membership goal, but exceed it.

I’d also like to bring your attention to our new online Current Membership List. For years, the Clary Lake Association did not disclose their membership list for no particular reason other than the organization was relatively small, the group fairly close knit, and everyone knew everyone else anyways. When I first became President of the Association back in 2o07, we were averaging 35 to 40 members a year. Since then, interest in and support of the Clary Lake Association has grown considerably and our membership numbers have reflected that increased interest. Last year we had 81 members and as I mentioned at the start of this posting, this year’s goal is 100 members.

Two years ago we started to publish a Membership List in the Summer Newsletter, and it was well received. People commented favorably about it and they universally appreciated being publicly recognized for being a member. In fact, I believe making our list public has actually helped increase our membership- it certainly hasn’t hurt it! So after discussing it with the Board, we decided publishing our Current Membership List on the website was a good idea. You’ll find it at the top of the list under the Membership Main menu heading.

01 September 2016: Petitioner Files Consented-To Motion Regarding Deadlines

Attorneys for AquaFortis Associates filed a “Motion Regarding Deadlines” in Superior Court on August 29, 2016. This motion seeks a conference with the Court in late September pursuant to the Court’s June 17, 2016 Order. The purpose of the conference will be to resolve conflicts between the parties regarding discovery requests which were served by DEP on AquaFortis on August 2, 2016. This motion was consented to by the DEP and was signed by the judge on August 30.

Typically, requests for discovery (documents, depositions etc.) are not filed with the court or made public. Therefore we don’t know exactly what has been asked for by DEP. However, the Motion gives us an idea:

4. In accordance with the Court’s Procedural Order, on August 2, 2016, the DEP served on Aquafortis (1) the DEP’s First Requests for Production of Documents to Petitioner, (2) the DEP’s Notice of 30(b)(6) Deposition of Aqua Fortis (which DEP defines to include Richard Smith), and (3) the DEP’s Notice of Intended Discovery of Third Parties, including proposed discovery of Pleasant Pond Mill, LLC (which DEP defines to include Paul Kelley), Medius L3C, and Mr. Arthur Enos.

The motion goes on to say that “The parties also agree that a hearing with the Court to resolve discovery disputes is necessary. Aqua Fortis plans to object to the majority of the DEP’s discovery requests and the proposed discovery of third parties” and that “The parties are working cooperatively and in good faith to address the disputed discovery issues and plan on conferring to discuss these issues no later than September 7, 2016.”

September sounds like it’s going to be an interesting month; it will be very interesting to see what ends up being allowed in discovery.

This isn’t a terribly long document so I hope you’ll all take the time to read it.

Consented-To Motion Regarding Deadlines 08-29-2016

Stay tuned.

01 September 2016: DEP files Administrative Record with Superior Court

It has been a busy summer for me and I am just now getting around to catching up with what’s been happening with the Clary Lake Water Level Order appeal. I last posted on July 22nd about the Court’s June 7th Status Conference and resulting Procedural Order issued by the Court on June 17th which stayed the proceedings until August 1st and set a deadline of August 19th for the State to file the Administrative Record, and an outline of a discovery plan.

On August 17th Mark Bergeron of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection filed the Department’s “Administrative Record” which consists of 264 items on a CD. I did not make a copy of the CD, but I did copy the 20 page filing which lists all the various and sundry documents, photographs, and other items which comprise the full Administrative Record. The list starts with the Clary Lake Water Level Petition I filed with DEP on January 2, 2012 and ends with the Final Water Level Order issued by the Department on January 27, 2014 and includes everything in between. It’s an exhaustive list and just reading it for me was a tiring trip down memory lane. Continue reading →

August 2016 Water Level Chart Archived

August 2016

I’ve archived the August 2016 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the August chart is that it looks identical to the July 2016 chart except the water level is lower. The month started with the lake level at 63.24″ below the top of the dam and after a slow but steady decline of about 0.12″ per day, ended the month at a historic low level of -66.84″.

Rainfall for the month at 2.64″ was about 2/3 of an inch below normal. For the year to date we’re about 2.3″ below normal, not as bad as other parts of the state but still drought conditions.

Not much else to say about the August water level chart. You’ve only seen Clary Lake this low once before, 11 months ago on September 29, 2015.

28 August 2016: State Boat Launch Rock Cleanup Initiative Finished

The Boat Launch Rock Cleanup Crew

We had a great turn out for the Boat Launch Rock Cleanup event yesterday with 30 people showing up to move rocks or assist in other ways. A few people unable to move rocks fulfilled other important roles. Everyone contributed in one way or another. The rock moving itself, which was expected to take the better part of 4 hours, was pretty much finished before lunch, in about an hour and a half.

The folks in the group-photo are left to right, front row kneeling: Lucy Norman, Erin Grimshaw and her 3 sons Corey Dey Bishop, Jayden Dey Bishop, and Devon Dey Bishop, Colin Fergusson; Second row: Don Norman, Melissa Palmer-Karas, Alicia Fraser, Mary Gingrow-Shaw, Margaret Fergusson, George Fergusson (not smiling for some reason) Karen Nielsen and Sara Roy; Third row: Dee Ann Grazioso, Barbara Ahern, Bill Donovan, Osmand Karas, Nathan Williams, John Williams, Tom Vigue, Jeff French; Fourth row: Tim Harkins, David Knight, Jack Holland, Randy Wing. Not pictured are Ellis Percy and John Ahern who weren’t involved in the rock moving, and Thomas Gillette and Bruce MacDonald who showed up later when the work was finished.

The work got done, we had a blast, nobody got hurt, and nobody freaked out when a good sized water snake crawled out of the shrinking rock pile and swam off between people’s legs. I caught a brief glimpse of it but wasn’t quick enough with my camera to get a picture of it. Continue reading →

State Boat Launch Cleanup Update: Saturday 27 August

We’re all set to go tomorrow morning to move rocks at the State boat launch. A good crowd of people have indicated they plan to come by to either help move rocks, or kibitz. In any case, all are welcome: it promises to be a fun time and the weather is looking to be about perfect.

The Momentum Committee will be showing up about 9 AM to get things set up with the work set to start about 10 AM. Hopefully we’ll be able to wrap up around 2 PM or shortly thereafter. Lunch will be served mid-way through the day. We’re providing hamburgers, hotdogs, potato chips, water, etc.

The water level hit -66″ below the top of the dam this morning (a little lower than the picture shows above, which was taken last summer) so it really is about as low as it can get. However, there’s still a good 6″ to 12″ of water where we’ll be working, so plan your wardrobe accordingly: rubber boots or sneakers are in order along with shorts and work gloves. Remember we’ll be handling wet slippery rocks so sandals or barefeet are NOT recommended. The bottom is generally pretty hard however, so you don’t have to worry about getting stuck in the mud!

Any last minute questions, feel free to call George Fergusson. Hope to see you there!

Clary Lake Association To Clear Rocks at State Boat Launch Saturday August 27th

The Clary Lake Association has received authorization from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife (IF&W) to clear some rocks away from the end of the State boat launch. These rocks constitute a boating hazard which over the years since the boat launch was built have claimed more than a few outboard props and lower units. After discussing this project with representatives of the IF&W, the Clary Lake Association requested IF&W file for a Permit By Rule with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection under the National Resource Protection Act’s Permit By Rule Standards. They did just that, and we received the go-ahead to do the work earlier this week.

The applicable rule is Chapter 305 Section 6 “Movement of Rocks & Vegetation” which provides for limited clearing of rocks and vegetation by hand from a 10′ wide area. Other requirements of the work to be done are that the rocks cannot be removed from the lake gut must be redistributed into small piles that fish fry can use to take refuge, rather than just randomly scattering them. Since this exercise is to remove a boating hazard, the rocks obviously shouldn’t be piled up in a fashion or location that will have them interfering with boat traffic in the future.

Obviously, this work needs to be done while the water level is low. Once the fall rains start and the lake level starts to rise, it will be too late. The water level is currently a little over 65″ below the top of the dam, about 2″ lower than in the photograph above which was taken last summer in July. To that end we have tentatively scheduled a work session (I prefer to call it a party) from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Saturday August 27th to do the rock clearing and we’ll be looking for volunteers to help with the project. Many hands will make the work go quickly! In the next day or so we’re going to send an email mailing to Clary Lake Association members to drum up interest in helping with this project. There are a number of ways you can help with this project. If you’re interested in participating in the actual rock moving or just want to come by, enjoy the event, have fun, and support us in this endeavor, please contact George Fergusson or give me a call at 207-549-5991.

Since we’re going to be splashing around in 6″ to 12″ of water, we’ll be doing this work rain or shine unless there’s an absolute deluge that day in which case we’ll put the work off until the next day. People interested in helping should wear rubber boots or sneakers because you’ll be getting wet. We also recommend gloves. We’ll have a few crowbars available for those recalcitrant stuck-in-the-mud rocks.

There’ll be a cookout around lunch time, and contributions toward this are welcome. It promises to be a fun event. We look forward to your participation!

2016 Annual Meeting Minutes Posted

[dropcap]I’ve[/dropcap] posted the minutes for our 2016 Annual Membership Meeting held back on August 6th on the Meeting Minutes page. If you missed the meeting for whatever reason they should give you a pretty good idea of what took place. If anyone who was at the meeting sees any glaring errors or omissions please feel free to bring them to my attention. As usual, the Membership will be asked to accept them at next year’s Annual Meeting.

2016 Annual Membership Meeting Minutes

08 August 2016: Clary Lake Association Annual Meeting Huge Success

Around 35 people showed up last Saturday afternoon for the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Clary Lake Association held at the home of Erin Grimshaw and Christina Bishop on the south shore overlooking Clary Lake in Jefferson (picture at left). The venue was perfect but the weather was unsettled and VERY HOT. Storms were forecast. A brief rain shower shortly after the start of the meeting forced us to seek shelter inside and when we resumed the meeting outdoors, the air had cooled off nicely. It was a great meeting by all accounts. 19 people joined or renewed their membership before the start of the meeting which brought our total 2016/2017 membership count to 71. Not bad for the day of the meeting! Typically membership renewals continue to come in during the month of August. I’m confident that we’ll reach our goal of 100 members this year. Continue reading →

04 August 2016: Annual CLA Meeting Plans, Agenda, Coming Together

[dropcap]Plans[/dropcap] for our Annual Meeting this coming Saturday afternoon August 6th (at the home of Erin Grimshaw and Christina Bishop at 739 Gardiner Road in Jefferson) are shaping up nicely. The registration table will be setup up by 1:00 PM and the meeting will start at 2:00 PM sharp so if you haven’t already paid your dues yet, plan to show up early to take care of business. The membership year runs from the start of one annual meeting to the start of the next one so in order to vote your dues need to be paid up. If you’re not going to be able to make it to the meeting and want to give your proxy to someone to vote for you, please make sure your dues are paid before the start of the meeting or you won’t be able to vote! Also remember that as a result of recent changes to our Bylaws, anyone can be a voting member simply by paying dues: 1 member = 1 vote.

We’ve got a full agenda (see below). At the top is Senator Christopher Johnson, our guest speaker this year. He’ll be stopping by to speak briefly about his recent activities around Clary Lake, and answering questions. Chris’s schedule that day is tight however and he’ll have to leave early. He’s planning to be there before the meeting starts however so if you want a chance to meet and talk with him, come early. Continue reading →

July 2016 Water Level Chart Archived

July 2016

I’ve archived the July 2016 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the July chart is that despite the dam’s gate being effectively closed for the whole month, the water level still fell slowly but steadily for pretty much the whole month, starting out at -58.92″ below the top of the dam and ending at -63.00″ for a total loss of 4.08″ most of which was due to evaporation: the small amount of water that can be seen flowing through the gate in the dam is just ground water seeping out of the marsh; there has been no flow of water out of Clary Lake for most of the month. If you’re thinking this is sounding familiar, it is because it is: July 2016 is almost a day-for-day repeat of July 2015.

We received a total of 3.05″ of rain during the month, about 1/2″ less than normal. The only benefit I can see of the lack of rain and the resulting lack of runoff this year is that it has helped maintain lake transparency.