This little dingy drifted up to the northwest end of the lake the other day and beached itself on Eleanor Goldberg’s property. She pulled it up on shore. If it’s your boat, come get it or if you know who it belongs to, let them know. Thanks!
Well that didn’t take long. Mystery resolved. It belongs to Rick Gallion 🙂
There was an article in yesterday’s Kennebec Journal by staff writer Paul Koenig providing a welcome update on the current circumstances surrounding the Clary Lake water level order. It is nice to see the KJ keeping this issue before the public, rather than letting it fade into obscurity. Paul Kelley was quoted as saying that mediation is to start at the end of this month and that the process is likely to extend into August: “My hope is that all the parties see that the best solution is no longer to fight this but to try to see if there is some constructive solution.” Nonetheless, the spokeswoman for the department said the DEP still expects the dam owner to begin maintaining the higher water levels by Oct. 1. Here’s a link to the article:
If anyone has trouble getting the article off the newspaper site, I’ve saved a local copy:
I was briefly interviewed by phone but I didn’t have a lot to say. The article does not mention whether the spokesperson for the Clary Lake Petitioners and/or the Clary Lake Association (as intervenors in the petition) will be asked to participate in the mediation. While I was quoted as saying that I don’t expect anything to come from mediation, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be willing to join in the process.
FYI, the next deadline for Paul July 27th when he has to resubmit his Water Level Survey (which was also deemed “unsatisfactory”) and then by August 1st he is supposed to have completed repairs to the dam, and installed a water level gauge.
The article also mentions the Branch Pond water level order and the recent letter from the Coombs. It remains to be seen how or if the Department chooses to respond to their “declaration.”
Paul Kelley responded today to DEP’s June 2nd letter clarifying the requirements of Special Condition #5 of the water level order and giving him till today to submit a revised Water Level Management Plan (see 03 June 2014: DEP responds to Paul Kelley’s Water Level Management Plan). Instead of a revised plan, Kelley responded with 4 separate documents: a letter to Beth Callahan, an email exchange he had with Beth Callahan back in March of this year, a copy of an email from DEP staff person Erle Townsend dated September 20, 2011, and a page of historical rainfall data from the NOAA website.
In short, more of the same. The email from Erle Townsend is the same as Kelley’s “Exhibit L” entered into the record during his testimony at the public hearing back in August 2012. We’ve seen it before. DEP has seen it before. Kelley seems to think it is relevant to the situation. It isn’t. Continue reading
“Unacceptable at this time” is how the Department of Environmental Protection has characterized Paul Kelley’s Water Level Survey that he submitted to the Department in response to Special Condition #4 of the Clary Lake Water Level Order. If you’re having a sense of deja vu all over again it’s because this this is the exact same phrase the Department used to describe his Water Level Management Plan in a letter sent to him back on June 2nd (see the news article here). Mr. Kelley certainly isn’t scoring very high marks with the Department over his attempts to comply with the Water Level Order… it’s almost like he isn’t even trying:
Special Condition #4, Clary Lake Survey, DEFICIENCY
The letter gives Mr. Kelley until July 21st to submit a survey along with a Condition Compliance Application and a $146 application fee. Mr. Kelley is not considered in violation of the Order at this time, but don’t worry: that will change soon enough.
The Department of Environmental Protection has issued the FINAL Branch Pond Water Level Order, effective today June 6, 2014. The Branch Pond water level petition was filed on December 9, 2008 but was put on hold by the Department for 3 years to give the dam owners time to effect repairs to the dam. Repairs to the dam were not made however, and processing of the petition resumed in December 2011. I have been following the proceedings since the summer of 2012, and I attended their Public Hearing in August 2013 and we’ve been hosting a few pages for the Branch Pond Association on our site for some time now. It is interesting to note that this Order was signed by Commissioner Patricia Aho herself:
Branch Pond is a beautiful little pond located in the towns of China and Palermo, at the headwaters of the Western Branch of the Sheepscot River. It is well worth a visit. It’s smaller than Clary Lake but it has numerous islands and large relatively shallow water areas. I’ve been up there a couple of times and but I 
haven’t been out on the pond. Yet. I plan to head up there with my kayak later this summer. With my fishing pole. Check out these photographs of Branch Pond. Those showing the impact of low water were part of the Branch Pond Water Level Petition.
“Unacceptable at this time.” That is how the Department of Environmental Protection has characterized Paul Kelley’s Water Level Management Plan in a letter to him dated June 2nd. The plan, one of the requirements in the Clary Lake Water Level Order, was submitted back on May 2nd. The letter goes on to list the plan’s deficiencies and the steps Mr. Kelley needs to take to remedy those deficiencies. It also informed him of the need for a Condition Compliance Application along with a $146 application fee. The letter gives Mr. Kelley exactly 1 month (until July 2nd) to resubmit his corrected/revised Water Level Management Plan along with his application and application fee. Mr. Kelley is not considered in violation of the Order at this time.
The Maine Lakes Society (formerly the Congress of Lake Associations or COLA) is holding their annual membership meeting this coming June 28th at Colby College in Waterville. For years Ed Grant attended the Annual COLA meetings on behalf of the Clary Lake Association. I represented the Association at last year’s meeting and I had a blast, I’m planning on attending this year too. If anyone would like to ride along, let me know. The cost is $20 per person. The cutoff for online registration is June 25th. Here’s a link to the Meeting Agenda. Here’s the newsletter/announcement they sent around today:
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According to information recently obtained from the Town of Whitefield, Pleasant Pond Mill LLC has requested an inter-agency, pre-application meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers and representatives of other State and Federal Agencies to discuss permitting issues surrounding the repair and/or replacement of the Clary Lake dam. A pre-application meeting is standard operating procedure when contemplating a project requiring an NRPA (National Resource Protection Act) permit. Mr. Kelley must be contemplating a major dam reconstruction project involving significant alteration of lots of fresh water wetlands and possible damage to the downstream ecology to require pursuing an NRPA tier 1, 2, or 3 permit, especially considering that back in 2011 he felt (and DEP agreed) that the repairs he contemplated required a simple Permit By Rule approach. What has changed?
I understand that this inter-agency pre-application meeting is tentatively scheduled for the 17th of June. This date incidentally is 2 weeks past the next upcoming Water Level Order deadline of June 2nd when Mr. Kelley is supposed to have submitted a survey of the historical normal high water line of Clary lake, and not quite one and a half months before the August 1st deadline by which time Mr. Kelley is to have completed dam repairs and installed a water level gauge. It’s going to be a busy summer for him!
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There is an article by Dominik Lobkowicz in this week’s Lincoln County News on page 8 about the Water Level Management Plan (WLMP) submitted by Paul Kelley last week. The article does a pretty good job of covering the main issues surrounding the WLMP. According to the article, the Department will “work diligently to complete a thorough review in a timely manner” and that “any deficiencies will be identified and an opportunity provided to correct them.” The article does not appear in the public version of the Lincoln County News Online. I recommend those of you who can, buy a copy of this week’s paper. For those of you who can’t, I scanned a copy of the article:
The article goes on to state that “attempts by PPM to court the Clary Lake Association … failed to yield a secondary designee.” Right. Well I was on the receiving end of Mr. Kelley’s attempts to “court” the Association. If Mr. Kelley really wanted us to assume that role, he sure went about it wrong. All he succeeded in doing was to discourage us from taking on that role. I’ve already posted about how he tried to “court” the towns of Whitefield and Jefferson. They wouldn’t take the job either.
Hi All! I have created a new Clary Lake Association page on Google+ to replace the original “Community” page. There are several reasons for doing this, the primary one being that I can’t automagically add website posts to the Community page, but I can to the new one. Otherwise, the pages look about the same. Currently website posts here are automatically posted to my personal George Fergusson Google+ page as public posts and to get them posted on the Community page requires I do it manually. Sadly, I don’t have the time or inclination to do that so there hasn’t been much happening there. Incidentally, the posting goes both ways, though not automatically: Google+ posts can be easily embedded on this site. How cool is that?
It might take a few tries to get the automatic posting working. We’ll see. Here’s the link to the new page:
https://plus.google.com/106016569430460657201/posts
Just a reminder, the Association has a Facebook page too. The Association’s Community page is going away soon. If you are among those that have posted stuff on the Community page (you know who you are) please feel free to repost it on the new page. Thanks!
I’ve added two new photos to the Chase Family Archive that Tim Chase gave me the other day. They were taken by his father Chester Chase, owner of the Clary Lake dam, during a heavy runoff event in June of 1984. We already had one picture in the archive from of that event but it was undated. These new photographs have the date “June 1984” written on the back in Chester’s characteristic hand writing.
These pictures show a significant runoff event. Checking the Weather Underground archives for 1984, it appears about 7.72″ of rain fell between May 26th and June 2nd that spring, which I reckon would be more than enough rain to account for the flow we’re seeing in these photographs. It is interesting to note that even with the water level this high, it is still over a foot below the official FEMA flood elevation for Clary Lake of 153.6′ which corresponds to the top of the concrete pier on top of the dam. This suggests that even this water level, as high as it was, was not considered a “flood” event in a technical sense.
There are a few other pictures in the Chase Family Archive showing extreme high water including an aerial photograph clearly showing water pouring over the dam and I would imagine that these are all taken about the same time.
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.
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.
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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.
Back 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.
David 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 
about 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.
Paul 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.
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 Whitefield 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
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.
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