I HATE busted links, everywhere, but especially on our own website. It’s come to my attention that a lot of links to documents & stuff that are stored on Google Drive have recently become inaccessible due to a more stringent security procedures. Security is a good thing, busted links are not. I’ve fixed quite a few already but more undoubtedly are hiding, waiting to not show you what you want to see. If you try to view something and get “You need access” instead (picture, at left) PLEASE click the “Request Access” button. This will send me an email and let me know you found a busted link. Thanks in advance!
Yearly Archives: 2022
January 2022 Water Level Chart Archived
I have archived the January 2022 Water Level Chart (at left), starting off the new year with more snow on the ground than I can remember seeing for several years. Compared to recent winters, this condition bodes well for our ground water supply come spring the ground thaws this spring and the snow melts.
Our general dam management goal in the winter is to maintain a lake level somewhere around 18 inches below the HWM. This is low enough to prevent ice damage to the shoreline around the lake yet still high enough to maintain outflows sufficient to meet the minimum flows requirement of the Clary Lake Water Level Order. To that end, we’ve been successful: the lake level is currently around -1.41 feet and outflows are around 13 cfs (cubic feet per second), slightly higher than the current minimum flows which of 11.3 cfs. If you’re unclear about minimum flows, what they are, and why we are supposed to maintain them, see Minimum Flows Explained.
Baby It’s Cold Outside!
For my friends unfortunate enough to not be in Maine for this epic blizzard. Sound ON:
Stanley M. Whittier January 10, 1931 – January 24, 2022
Stanley Whittier built his camp on Clary Lake back in 1955 and he has been a Clary Lake Association member since we formed back in the summer of 1960. Due to failing health, it’s been a few years since he was last a CLA member but his many years of support are not forgotten. Here is his Obituary in the Central Maine Papers:
WATERVILLE – Stanley M. Whittier, 91, formerly a long time resident of Augusta, died Monday, Jan. 24, 2022, at the Alfond Center for Health in Augusta following a long illness. He was born in Bath on Jan. 10, 1931, a son of the late Stanley A. and Frances (Martin) Whittier.
Mr. Whittier attended Augusta schools and was a communicant of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church. He was a US Army veteran, serving during the Korean War.
Mr. Whittier had been self-employed barber for many years in Augusta, where he also enjoyed organizing the Chamber of Commerce Whatever Week Races and you could always spot him in the bleachers at Cony basketball games. In 1955 he built his camp on Clary Lake in Jefferson which was his favorite place to spend time with family.
He was predeceased by his wife, Irene J. (Valliere) Whittier; two brothers, Keith and Leonard Whittier and his sister, Joyce Chick.
Mr. Whittier is survived by his two daughters, Gail J. Champine of Waterville and Jane F. Roy of Biddeford; five grandchildren, Stacy Grondin, Jessica Grondin, Carly Champine, Morgan Burnette, and Dylane Farrington, nine great-grandchildren; three great-great- grandchildren; and several nieces, nephews and cousins.
Relatives and friends may visit on Tuesday, Feb. 1 from 10 – 11 a.m. at Plummer Funeral Home, 16 Pleasant St., Augusta where a funeral service will follow at 11 a.m. Burial will be in the spring in Sand Hill Cemetery, Somerville.
Condolences, stories and photos may be shared at http://www.plummerfh.com.
The family requests that donations in Stan’s memory be made to:
Travis Mills Foundation
89 Water St.
Hallowell, ME 04347
Maine Lakes’ Wednesday Webinars are back!
I’m looking forward to these webinars!
22 January 2022: Venus Rising
I woke up this morning to find Venus gracing Clary_cam2, rising in the east along with the bright star Altair, visual magnitude 0.76 visible slightly above and to the left of Venus. I love the way the bright planet reflects on the ice of Clary Lake.
Public Hearing on LD 1826: Interagency Task Force on Invasive Aquatic Plants and Nuisance Species
Sorry for the short notice! This public hearing is TOMORROW! I received this notice of pending legislation in my mailbox just now and decided to post it on our site. The Clary Lake Association is deeply concerned with protecting all Maine lakes and Clary Lake in particular from the unwanted introduction of invasive species. To that end we are 3 years into a long term Courtesy Boat Inspection program and are developing plans for an Invasive Plant Program for Clary Lake. Submitting a short comment to the Environment and Natural Resources Committee is simple and worthwhile. You can see what comments have already been left at the above link. Comments need not be long or involved. This is important. Thank you for being concerned.
The second session of the 130th legislature is underway! While there is a lot going on during the session, there are only a few lake bills we’ll be reaching out to you about this year. The first one has a public hearing coming up soon: Monday, January 10th at 10:30 a.m. via Zoom.
LD 1826 creates a subcommittee of the existing Interagency Task Force on Invasive Aquatic Plants and Nuisance Species. The subcommittee will: Continue reading
09 January 2022: Crazy Like a Fox!
Imagine my surprise when I looked out my upstairs office window at the lake yesterday afternoon and saw a red fox cavorting out on the ice. Then it cavorted back in the other direction, then back again. You can see it’s tracks in the snow. I tried to get logged into the webcam in time to get a video but I wasn’t able to. My neighbor was out ice fishing and he and the fox must have seen each other.
[UPDATED] December 2021 Water Level Chart Archived
I have archived the December 2021 Water Level Chart (at left), bringing 2021 to a close. Our general goal in December is to get the lake down to about 18 inches by the time it freezes over, without overshooting the mark. We have after all only 24 inches to play with. As it turns out, the lake froze over on December 20th with the lake level down just 1 foot. Precipitation for the month was 3.44 inches, average for December, bringing us to 46.18 inches for the year, 2.12 inches more than average. It is only because of the excessive rainfall we received in July (9 inches) and September (8.5 inches) that we ended the year a bit ahead of average precipitation because for most of the rest of the year, we fell short of monthly averages. And that’s about all I’m going to say about December. It’s a New Year.
One big difference between 2020 and 2021 turned out to be the flushing rates and retention times. In 2020 we had a flushing rate of about 2.3x with a retention time of 140 days. In 2021 the flushing rate was 1.8x (the same as the published rate for Clary Lake) with a retention time of 240 days. This is in effect a measure of the amount of water that passed through Clary Lake: in 2020, a total of 16,632 acre feet of water passed through the lake, in 2021 that figure was significantly less, only 13,274 acre feet. The lower flushing rate in 2021 very likely had a beneficial effect on water quality.
[UPDATE]: I was so intrigued with the difference in flushing rate and retention time for 2020 and 2021 that I decided to graph them to make the differences more evident. Here’s the result:
I’ll add data for 2022 as it becomes available.
I can’t end 2021 without highlighting an interesting but ultimately useless bit of data analysis I wasted time on this year. Everyone knows that I love charts. If you don’t know that by now, then you simply haven’t been paying attention! I’d like to show you two fascinating but useless charts I made this year. First a bit of explanation. I have long thought it would be cool if I could somehow correlate the flows from Clary Lake with the flows in the Sheepscot River as measured at the Sheepscot River Gaging Station which is located at the foot of Grand Army Hill. It turns out you really can’t correlate the two flows in any reasonable fashion for two primary reasons. First, because the hydrological characteristics of the Clary Lake watershed (9.9 square miles) and that of the larger Sheepscot River watershed (142 square miles) are quite different. Clary should contribute 6.9% of the water measured at the gaging station but that figure actually varied from a low of around 1% to a high of 60% with an average of around 12.4%. Sheesh. Second, nobody actually controls the flows on the river, but we do in fact do control the outflows from Clary Lake so it is largely our own management activities that make correlating the two flows almost impossible. It would be nice if Clary outflows were always 6.9% of Sheepscot River flows, but I guess that would be too easy! Anyways, here are two charts I made while investigating whether a correlation between lake and river flows exists. One shows Clary Flows as a percentage of the Sheepscot River flows. The average turned out to be 12.43%. The other is a simple visual comparison of the two flow amounts which I did to see if anything jumped out at me. Nothing did:
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Here’s the 2021 Water Level Chart gallery:
Happy New Year everyone 🙂