Author Archives: George Fergusson

[UPDATED]: May 2017 Water Level Chart Archived

May 2017

I have archived the May 2017 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the May chart is how much rain fell on us during the month. Most of you will agree that May was a cold, wet month. Average rainfall for May is 3.7″ and we received just over 5.1″ or 1.4″ more rain than usual. This brings us to 16.24″ for the year which is only slightly more than the average rainfall of 15.91″ for this date. As a result of the extra rainfall, on average the lake level fell only 0.4″ per day rather than the expected 1″ per day, resulting in a total drop for the month of only 13.56″: we started the month at -20.5″ below the high water mark, and ended the month at -34.1″ below the high water mark.

Not much else to say about this.

[UPDATE]: Revised to show additional rainfall received when some late evening thunder storms rolled through. As a result of that extra rainfall, the lake level this morning is unchanged from yesterday morning’s reading.

The Mill at Freedom Falls – Freedom, Maine

The Mill at Freedom Falls, site of The Lost Kitchen.

[dropcap]The[/dropcap] other day I came across the following article about a fine dining establishment called The Lost Kitchen located in the Mill at Freedom Falls, Freedom Maine. I decided to post the article here as an example of how a well thought-out and executed development plan can lead to a wonderful local resource that enriches both the town and the lives of the people that visit it. When juxtaposed with our own Clary Water Mill, it allows us to see just how badly Paul Kelley and his partner Richard Smith botched their own attempted development project. While it is to their credit that these two men saw the historic beauty of the old Clary water mill site and recognized it’s nascent development potential, it is unfortunate that they failed to come up with a viable plan to develop it. It is even more regrettable that they chose to blame their failure not on themselves and their ill-conceived plans but instead on the Town of Whitefield and the Clary Lake Association, and to take their revenge against Clary Lake itself and the People of the State of Maine. Why would they try to destroy that which gives their property it’s value?

Enough of that. Please check out the article. I intend to visit the Mill at Freedom Falls this summer, and to dine at the Lost Kitchen:

This Remote Restaurant In Maine Will Take You A Million Miles Away From Everything

There are actually 2 stories here. One is about The Lost Kitchen and the other is about the old mill building that houses it. There is a great site documenting the history of that structure, and it’s restoration:

The Mill at Freedom Falls – Freedom, Maine

2017 Season Lake Water Quality Monitoring Resumes

Last Friday morning, May 12th, David Hodsdon and I resumed water quality monitoring on Clary Lake for the 2017 season. Jack Holland usually joins us but was unable to join us for this first data gathering session. Normally we venture out onto the lake every 2 weeks from May through September to the “deep hole” (30′ deep when the lake is full) where we anchor and collect data which we periodically send in to the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program. The data collected includes water depth, secchi disk (transparency) readings, water temperature and dissolved oxygen data at the surface at every meter down to the bottom, as well as air temperature, current weather conditions, wind speed, etc. You can view a subset of the collected data for recent years on our Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page.

In addition to periodically submitting water quality data to the VLMP, secchi disk readings are also added to the Near Real-Time Lake Data site. Clary Lake has been participating in the VLMP since 1975.

10 May 2017 Lincoln County News: Despite Bankruptcy, Clary Lake Dam Situation ‘Status Quo’

Lincoln County News staff writer Abigail Adams attended the May 1st bankruptcy meeting of creditors and has written an article about it appearing in this week’s Lincoln County News. It’s a good, factual article but like the recent article in the Central Maine Papers, it incorrectly states that “Medius L3C foreclosed on the dam and held an auction for it in January 2016.” It would be more accurate to say that Medius L3C tried to foreclose on the dam, but failed. Had the foreclosure been successful, someone other than Pleasant Pond Mill would own the property now.

This confusion over foreclosure does nothing to detract from an otherwise accurate and well written article, and I am grateful that the Lincoln County News and the Central Maine Papers are helping keep this slow-motion train wreck in the news:

Despite Bankruptcy, Clary Lake Dam Situation ‘Status Quo’

Continue reading →

April 2017 Water Level Chart Archived

April 2017

I have archived the April 2017 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the April chart is that the lake level rose above the -2 foot mark on April 7th and stayed above that level for the next 24 days, until the end of the month. It also reached -8.76″ below the high water mark when the ice went out on April 13th, which is the highest level I have recorded since I starting making water level measurements back in December 2011. However, the Clary Lake Water Level Order calls for the lake level to be maintained at the normal high water mark from ice out until August 1st and that “at no time during this period shall the lake level be artificially manipulated to be lower than the established normal high water line” so as high as it was, it still fell short of the requirements of the Order. No soup for you, Mr. Kelley.

We received 4.20″ of precipitation during the month of April or about 0.42″ more than the average of 3.78″ bringing us to 10.18″ for the year, or about 2″ below normal. The drought conditions we experienced last summer and fall have been fully relieved with ground water supplies back more or less to normal.

It remains to be seen what the lake level will be like this summer.

18 April 2017: Spring Musings and a Look Ahead

Isn’t it time to get a dry fire hydrant installed at the inlet of the lake on Route 126?

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] try to keep this news forum factual and informative and not all that speculative. From time to time however I am compelled to offer up some commentary on what has been happening, where we are and where it looks like we are headed. This is one of those times. My goal is to bring some perspective and commonality into our lives where they intersect with Clary Lake and the travails that have assaulted it for so long. Spring is a good time for this kind of musing: it’s a time to wake up, gear up, get in shape, and get ready for another season. I feel this is going to be an important year, that a lot is going to happen. We may not see a resolution of our water level crisis this year but then again we might, the problem being that I really have no idea what a “resolution” might look like. Certainly we’ll see some real progress towards a resolution. Not only am I prepared to be surprised, I expect to be. If one thing has been proven time and time again it is that we have no idea what lies around the next corner. Continue reading →

Membership Matters

The other day I had the pleasure of adding a final Clary Lake shore owner to our current year membership rolls, bringing the total Membership for the 2016/2017 year to 118. It is unusual for people to be sending in dues this late for the current year. Given that our membership year runs from Annual meeting to Annual meeting and with only 4 months left in this membership year, I decided to contact the person to ask if they intended their dues to apply to this year, or the upcoming year? Their response was heartening: they apologized for being late in renewing and said the dues were for this year, and that they’d be paying their 2017/2018 dues shortly. And they did. Well alright. I like that. Because Membership Matters.

Before going any further, I wish to thank everyone who saw fit to join the Clary Lake Association this year. To give you an idea of how amazing it is to have 118 members, consider that last year we had 81 which was the most members, ever. That’s an increase of 45% in one year. Here are our membership numbers for the past 6 years. As you can see, there has been a steady increase from year to year: Continue reading →

Spring Supper to Benefit Fergusson Family After Fire

Happy Spring, everyone!

For those of you who don’t already know, the ancestral Fergusson family home on Clary Lake caught fire last week. Luckily, nobody was hurt in the blaze, however, a large part of the home was destroyed in the fire and George’s son Colin Fergusson and his partner Sara Roy lost pretty much everything in the fire.

The Fergusson family has been living on Clary Lake for 95 years. George Fergusson is the current Secretary of the Association and plays an integral role in the Association’s management and ongoing success. His father Stuart Fergusson was one of the CLA’s founding members of the Clary Lake Association back in 1961. Colin and Sara are already making plans to rebuild and hope to be moved back into part of the house by next winter.

The Clary Lake Association Momentum Committee will be co-sponsoring a Spring Supper with (and at) the Sheepscot General Store on Townhouse Road to benefit the Fergusson Family on May 6th from 5-7PM. Admission to the supper is two-fold: $5 and a dish of some sort to share (either a side dish, a salad, a dessert, or a beverage), but don’t let the lack of a dish stop you from coming by.

Please feel free to pass this email along or advertise as you see fit. The more, the merrier! If you have questions contact the Momentum Committee at momentum@clarylake.org. All proceeds will go to the Fergusson Family home rebuilding fund.

All the best,

Erin Grimshaw, CLA Momentum Committee Chair

[UPDATED] Clary Lake Ice Out Video April 13, 2017

Here’s a video of Clary Lake ice out on April 13, 2017 made from images from Clarycam 2 and Clarycam 3. Technically the ice isn’t fully out yet, but for me from where I’m sitting it’s ALL GONE. As of this morning however, there was still quite a bit of very gray looking ice in the east end of the lake almost to the State boat launch. I fully expect it will be out before the end of the day now that the sun is getting up and the wind is picking up.

I would have included a segment from Clarycam 2 sitting down on David Hodsdon’s shore line, but it has stopped working. Too soon to say whether or when we’ll replace it, or with what. I’m actually a little disillusioned with these Foscam cameras: remote access to them is tedious, the proprietary software used to access and manage them is one step above garbage, and the browser plugin to view realtime video is no longer supported by any reputable web browser. I have only got it working by installing an Extended Support Release of Firefox. Unacceptable.

[UPDATE]: David Hodsdon has informed me that his camera is truly dead. He thinks is it still under warranty and is going to see about getting it repaired/replaced.

Incidentally, David sent me the image that I’m using as a header image on this post. He spent some time the other day waiting for just the right conditions to take the picture.

11 April 2017: State Files Response to AQF Motion to Modify Record

A few weeks ago I posted about 2 filings by the State asking the court to consider the “mootness” and “justiciability” of a request made by Aquafortis Associates LLC [AQF] for additional discovery. In those filings the State asked the court to DENY the AQF motion. There is also another pending AQF Rule 80C(f) Motion Requesting Court Modification the [Administrative] Record that has now been addressed by the State. In English what it means is AQF wants to add various documents to the Record because they think they are important and relevant to their case. Personally I think the real purpose of this and similar motions is not the pursuit of justice at all, but rather, is simply to bury the court in ever growing piles of useless documents intended to bog down the legal proceedings and drag things out. Because that’s how the game is played. But I digress.

I’m sorry to be just getting to this now: back on April 3, 2017 the State filed DEP’s response to AQF’s Rule 80C(f) Motion Requesting Court Modification of the Record. The filing includes a Proposed Order for the Judge to sign should he uphold the State’s motion. Besides the legal mumbo jumbo that we all struggle with, there is fairly clear and understandable content in this filing and I encourage everyone to take a look at it. I’ll explain what it means below:

State Response to Petitioners’ Motion Requesting Court Modification of the Record

Continue reading →

Love and Loss… and Mindfulness

First, I’d like to thank everyone who has reached out to me and my family since the unfortunate house fire at the Fergusson ancestral home where my son has been living on the south shore of Clary Lake. The fire occurred last Wednesday evening, most likely starting as a chimney fire. There has been an unending stream of people arriving at my front door ever since with gifts of money, food, clothes, and offers of all sorts of assistance from places to stay to labor for cleanup and rebuilding. My son Colin and his girlfriend Sara spent 4 days staying (free of charge) at Rick and Linda Gallion’s Clary Lake Bed & Breakfast which I can assure you was a whole lot nicer than the pullout couch in my wife’s reading room. Today they moved out of the B&B and into a house in Chelsea that a friend of theirs has had on the market for a while. They’re welcome to stay there until the place sells. They’ve taken 2 of their 3 cats with them, having decided to leave Mehitabelle with Margaret and me. We’re thrilled.

The plan right now is for the family to rebuild, but there’s a lot to be done between now and then and it’s really too soon to be talking about that. Clean up has only begun, and the task is daunting. I am grateful for having been able to use this Association forum to share our experience, strength, and hope, but Clary Lake needs saving, and it is time to move on and put this unfortunate event in the rear view mirror. To that end, I am going to close with an email my wife composed and sent to her long list of friends. She just has a way with words that I lack. Continue reading →

10 April 2017 Central Maine Papers: Whitefield Dam Owner Files For Bankruptcy Protection

A new Central Maine Papers article by KJ staff writer Jessica Lowell appeared on-line last night and will be in today’s print edition. It is about Pleasant Pond Mill LLC’s [PPM] mind-boggling decision to file for bankruptcy, it also contains the necessary background to acquaint the reader with the basic facts of the story if they’re coming into this mess cold. The article contains a few mistakes (alternative facts?) which however do nothing to detract from it’s otherwise accurate and fair reporting. You have to admit, after 5+ years, our story has gotten pretty hard to follow. This is the first newspaper article about Clary Lake in over a year, and in my opinion it is overdue (shift-click to open link in a new tab):

Whitefield dam owner files for bankruptcy protection

Continue reading →

Fire Rips Through Whitefield House Family has Owned for Generations

Fire Damages Mid-1800s Whitefield Home

March 2017 Water Level Chart Archived

March 2017

I have archived the March 2017 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the March chart is the relatively stable water level throughout the entire month. The water level started out at -36.48″ below the high water mark [HWM], hit a high four days later of -30.48″ below the HWM on the 4th, and after falling very gradually it ended the month only 2.28″ lower than it started, at -34.20″ below the HWM, and this with the gate wide open for the entire month! Where did the runoff come from to offset all the water leaving the lake? Continue reading →

25 March 2017: Update on Pleasant Pond Mill Bankruptcy Filing

I have learned some details of the Pleasant Pond Mill LLC bankruptcy filing. First, it is a Chapter 7 bankruptcy which means the company and its assets will be liquidated by the Bankruptcy Court. Pleasant Pond Mill LLC [PPM] is being represented by a Portland attorney that specializes in bankruptcies. PPM will not emerge from this bankruptcy as a reorganized company; this is the beginning of the end of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC. Rest assured that while this action will wipe out PPM’s debt and dispose of its property, the bankruptcy will have no effect on the Clary Lake Water Level Order [WLO] which is and will remain in force, if not actually enforced, until the pending appeal in Superior Court is finished. Likewise, that litigation will not be affected by this bankruptcy because PPM and Paul Kelley are no longer parties to that appeal. Remember: the WLO runs with the land, not the owner; the new owner of the Clary Lake dam, whomever that is, will be subject to the WLO. Continue reading →

24 March 2017: State files 2 Motions in Aquafortis v. Maine Department of Environmental Protection WLO Appeal

On March 20, 2017 the State on behalf of DEP made two filings in Lincoln County Superior Court in their defense of the Clary Lake Water Level Order. These filings were made pursuant to the Court’s February 21, 2017 Order which (among other things) set the 3/20/17 deadline for the filing of “any additional motions concerning discovery or the course of future proceedings.” The first filing was a “Motion For Consideration Of Extra-Record Evidence For [the_tooltip text=”Mootness” tooltip=”In the legal system of the United States, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law.” url=”” background=”” color=””] and [the_tooltip text=”Justiciability” tooltip=”Justiciability concerns the limits upon legal issues over which a court can exercise its judicial authority. It includes, but is not limited to, the legal concept of standing” url=”” background=”” color=””] Purposes” and the second filing was the State’s “Opposition to Petitioner’s Motion for Taking of Additional Evidence and Discovery.” Both of these motions pertain to issues going to last August when the State submitted the Administrative Record and as far back as a year ago when Aquafortis Associates LLC [AQF] filed their amended petition (and the amended petition was required because the Judge threw Paul Kelley and his canceled company Pleasant Pond Mill LLC out of the case; see: 30 January 2016: Superior Court grants State’s Motion to Dismiss“).

Here are the latest filings- these really are fascinating documents and are well worth reading: Continue reading →

22 March 2017: Pleasant Pond Mill LLC Files For Bankruptcy

Based upon a letter hand delivered by Paul Kelley to the Lincoln County Superior Court yesterday, March 21, 2017, it appears that Clary Lake dam owner Pleasant Pond Mill LLC has filed for Bankruptcy. I picked up a copy of the letter today (see below). The letter doesn’t offer much information so it is not known at this time what kind of bankruptcy Mr. Kelley is pursuing. We’ll just have to wait and see! There are 2 kinds of bankruptcy available to corporations in Maine and the type chosen depends on whether one intends to liquidate (Chapter 7) their company, or attempt to reorganize it (Chapter 11).

PPM Bankruptcy Notice 3-21-2017

Clary Lake: A Year In Pictures

A little over a year ago I got this idea of assembling a year’s worth of webcam pictures into a video. Our webcams take a picture every two minutes from 4:00 AM until 10:00 PM and upload them to the server, so I simply modified the script that manages the webcam photos so as to archive all pictures taken at the top of the hour (i.e., 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, etc) in a separate directory for safe keeping. Then I forgot about it. Then a couple of days ago, I remembered it!

So here is the video. It covers 365 days from March 9, 2016 through March 9, 2017. There are a few days missing (including 3-13-16 through 3-15-16 which coincided with ice out last spring for some reason, and a couple of other days in the fall). I also decided to delete all the night-time photos, ending up with 4,651 pictures covering Clary Lake in all its glory, compiled into a video at a frame rate of 10/second. It is 7:45 long. Best viewed full screen with the sound on:

February 2017 Water Level Chart Archived

February 2017

I have archived the February 2017 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the February chart is how relatively stable the lake level was for the month, considering we received 1.44″ of precipitation, well below the average precipitation for February of 2.44″ (for Augusta). The lake level started the month at -37″ below the Normal High Water Mark (NHWM) and dropped to a low of -44.6″ on February 21st before ending the month 1/2″ higher than it started, at -36.5″ below the NHWM. The dam’s gate remained half open for the entire month, though the dam owner felt compelled to open it all the way on the first day of March, an action consistent with his observed behavior of trying to keep the lake level below the hole in the dam which is somewhere around -34″ below the top of the dam. There was no water flowing through the hole when I drove by the dam yesterday.

26 February 2017: Fire On Ice Winter Festival A Great Success!

February 2017 Fire on Ice Festival. This is about as close as I came to getting a group photo. A few people had already left, a few were yet to arrive.

The Winter “Fire on Ice” Festival put on by the CLA Momentum Committee last Saturday was a great success. The weather was good, the companionship was even better and the S’mores were perfect. By this time of the winter it seems like everyone is suffering from cabin fever to some extent, and it was wonderful to be able to get outside and enjoy the day without having to be all bundled up against the cold. All told about 2 dozen adults and 10 kids showed up for the event. Most were existing Clary Lake Association members but there were some new faces in the crowd including Stephanie Chamberlain and her partner Steve Berry, who recently bought a house in Coopers Mills. Over the course of the afternoon I took a lot of photographs which I’ve added to the Winter 2017 Photo Gallery (duplicated below). Continue reading →