Category Archives: News

News from around the lake.

02 April 2014: Water Level Measurements Resumed

I 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

05 March 2014 Lincoln County News: Clary Lake Dam Owners Seek to Have Water Level Order Vacated

There is an article in this week’s Lincoln County News about the appeal filed by Pleasant Pond Mill LLC in Lincoln County Superior court. The article, written by Dominik Lobkowicz, does a pretty good job of distilling the 27 page filing into something manageable. I spoke to Mr. Lobkowicz yesterday afternoon shortly after receiving word of the filing but before I’d had a chance to look it over. I sent him some of my thoughts on it in an email last night, a few of which made it into the paper. Those that didn’t are probably best left unpublished anyways.

Clary Lake Dam Owners Seek to Have Water Level Order Vacated

[Archived Copy]:
Clary Lake Dam Owners Seek to Have Water Level Order Vacated

05 February 2014 Lincoln County News: New Clary Lake Group aimed at water level order compliance

There’s a article in this week’s Lincoln County News by Dominik Lobkowicz about the Clary Dam Project. I was interviewed on the phone yesterday at length. It’s a good article I think, it captures my chagrin without making me feel stupid. Yes, this is an exercise in faith. No we have no idea when we might end up owning the dam. Yes we’re certain we will.

New Clary Lake Group aimed at water level order compliance

My letter to the editor is in the same issue. It appears to be identical to what I’ve already posted in A Letter to the Editor and thoughts on the Water Level Order.

31 January 2014: Maine Lakes Society Legislative Update

The Maine Lakes Society (formerly the Congress of Lake Associations or COLA) has sent around a legislative update in an attempt to solicit interest in several important bills currently before the Maine Legislature, LD 1744 and LD 1626. Sadly, I don’t have the free cycles to get involved in any legislative activities at this time, but perhaps someone out there reading this will.

Maine Lakes Society Winter 2014 Legislative Update

The Clary Lake Association has been an MLS (COLA) member for a long time.

30 January 2014: The February 2014 Whitefield Newsletter is available

The February 2014 Whitefield Newsletter is available. They’re doing a good job. Printed copies are available at the Town office and the Whitefield Superette, and probably the Sheepscot General, and on the Town website: http://www.townofwhitefield.com/ at this link: http://www.townofwhitefield.com/Newsletter.html

[gview file=”http://www.townofwhitefield.com/February2014.pdf” save=”0″]

29 January 2014: Google Earth Flyover of Clary Lake, then and now

David Chase has compiled a pretty cool video contrasting the water levels of Clary Lake between 1997 and 2013. He has posted it on the Clary Lake Association Google+ Community. He did it using a Google Earth flyover “tour.” Very impressive, and the comparison in water levels between then and now is stark. Thanks for sharing David!

Here’s the post:

https://plus.google.com/117329993421272712954/posts/b1Bxcr5M3Dk

Here’s the direct link to the video:

https://vidd.me/Aa3

29 January 2014 Lincoln County News: Water Level Order Enacted for Clary Lake

There is an article on the front page of this week’s Lincoln County News about the recently issued water level order for Clary Lake. I was interviewed at length yesterday morning by the reporter, Dominik Lobkowicz and I gather from statements in the article that he also subsequently interviewed Paul Kelley, who continues to posture and complain as if people still cared about what he thought:

Water Level Order Enacted for Clary Lake

[archived copy of article]

I have to comment on several things. First, Mr. Lobkowicz expressed surprise when I told him I thought Mr. Kelley would keep fighting this Order as long as he had the energy to do so. Surely Mr. Kelley will want to cut his losses? Well, numerous statements in the article clearly indicate that Kelley has no intention of simply “giving up” this battle even though the battle is over, and he has lost. Continue reading →

25 January 2014: Clary Lake Association Community set up on Google+

I have set up a Clary Lake Association Community on Google Plus. Online social networking communities provide means, methods, and opportunities for people to share and exchange information in ways that just aren’t offered by an more traditional information-distribution site such as this one. On this site, I post stuff and people can comment the posts and reply to comments, but it’s not the same thing as being involved in an online community. It has only been in existence for less than an hour and already there are 9 members and a video posted by David Chase. Go figure.

The Clary Lake Association community will also be a source of material for this site. That’s a good thing. If anyone has any questions about all this, email me or comment!

Google+ Embedded Post Example

I am testing embedding Google+ posts on the web site. This may or may not work on your computer/browser combination. In particular it seems Chrome on Windows XP seems not to work. If anyone has trouble viewing these posts, please email me or leave a comment with your operating system and browser. Thanks.

18 January 2014: Outflows from Clary Lake exceed 50 CFS

With the lake level higher than it’s been in several years, it follows that outflows from the lake should also be at levels not seen for quite some time. Well I had occasion to measure the outflow from Clary Lake this morning, out of curiosity as much as anything and sure enough, based on my calculations the current outflows as of the time of this writing are on the order of 83 cfs (cubic feet per second). The raw figure I arrived at was 98 cfs but it is customary to scale that figure down by as much as 15% to allow for flow losses resulting from friction on the sides and bottom of the stream which inevitably result in uneven water velocity and a lower overall flow value.

I estimate that about 55 cfs of water is flowing out of the dam’s outlet pipe and the rest of the water, about 30 cfs, is the result of water leaking through the hole in the dam and from seams on either side of the outlet. That there is a substantial amount of water leaking through the hole and cracks is apparent just by standing on the side of the road and looking at the downstream face of the dam. Here’s a short video I took this morning. What you can’t see in this video is the water leaking through the dam on the left side. It it essentially leaking across the entire face of the dam: Continue reading →

10 January 2014 Lincoln County News: Dam Owner Cries Foul With Comment Process

I’ve been a little busy this week so I’m just now getting around to posting about the latest article in this week’s Lincoln County News. This one covers the recently submitted final comments on the Draft Clary Lake water level order and it is presumably by Dominik Lobkowicz though there is no byline on it. Like the KJ article earlier this week, the focus is primarily on Paul Kelley and his complaints about the draft order:

Dam Owner Cries Foul With Comment Process

Here’s a locally archived copy:

[ARCHIVED]: Dam Owner Cries Foul With Comment Process

08 January 2014: Additional Comments on the Draft water level order

At my request, Beth Callahan has forwarded me a compilation of all the comments received by the Department on the DRAFT Clary Lake water level order. These include 3 emailed comments sent directly to Beth Callahan that, through understandable oversight, never made it to the Service List. These include emails from Senator Christopher Johnson, Steven Sheppard of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and Jeff Murphy of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Upon review it is easy to see why these “comments” were not forwarded to the Service List. Steven Sheppard of the USF&W’s comment consisted of the single sentence “The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service supports the provisions of the Draft Order.” Likewise, Jeff Murphy of NOAA asked a simple question and got a simple answer. Senator Johnson’s comment consisted of pointing out a grammatical error. Still, as trivial as these comments were, everyone is entitled to read them. Regarding Chris Johnson’s comment, I should point out that I was carbon-copied on Chris’s email to Beth Callahan and it never dawned on me that by all rights and purposes it should have been shared with the Service List.

I’ve separated out the extra comments into 2 files:

Comment by Senator Christopher Johnson on the Draft Clary Lake water level order

Agency Comments on the Draft Clary Lake water level order

Here’s the compilation of ALL the comments received by the Department

All Comments Received on the Draft Clary Lake water level order

Here are links to the comments I’ve already posted:

Petitioner and Clary Lake Association comments

Pleasant Pond Mill LLC comments

Thomas Gillette comments

07 January 2014 Kennebec Journal: Whitefield dam owner criticizes water level plan

kelley_at_mic Paul Koenig of the Kennebec Journal has written yet another article that has appeared online today and should be in the print edition tomorrow. According to the article, Senator Christopher Johnson, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service also submitted comments. I was not aware of this. I’m looking into it. In the meantime, here’s the article:

Whitefield dam owner criticizes water level plan

I was interviewed earlier today and apparently, so was Paul Kelley.

Here’s an archived copy should the KJ link stop working.

[ARCHIVED]: Whitefield dam owner criticizes water level plan

06 January 2014 Kennebec Journal: Whitefield dam owner denied additional time to comment on lake plan

read_all_about_it There is a new article by Paul Koenig in yesterday’s Sunday January 5th Kennebec Journal about Pleasant Pond Mill LLC’s travails in obtaining more time to comment on the Draft water level order. I was interviewed for the article by Mr. Koenig on Friday. I didn’t get a Sunday paper but a few people who did said they didn’t see it in the paper so it may only have appeared online. In any case, here it is:

Whitefield dam owner denied additional time to comment on lake plan

To refresh everyone’s memory, the Draft Clary Lake water level order was issued on 19 December and provided for an 11 day comment period ending on Monday, 30 December. They extended the comment period 1 week to the end of business today, January 6th. Continue reading →

04 January 2014: Volume 1 Issue 7 of Whitefield Newsletter now available

whitefield_logo The Town of Whitefield has been publishing a monthly newsletter since last July and they’re quite enjoyable. If you happen by the North Whitefield Superette you’ll find the latest issue on the counter, free of charge. Otherwise they’re available online on the Town of Whitefield website. You can also receive the newsletter by email by signing up at www.townofwhitefield.com/Newsletter.html.

This issue has an article by Tony Marple about the Central Maine Astronomical Society’s Brower Observatory located across the road from my house in my sister’s back yard, at 341 Jefferson Road. The observatory houses a 16″ Newtonian reflector as well as numerous other scopes of all sorts, and an extensive library of books, star charts, and atlases. The Central Maine Astronomical Society’s website is http://maineastro.com/

January 2014 Whitefield News

Incidentally, Whitefield’s tax maps and assessors land records are now online. This is huge. Get with it Jefferson! More about this in another post when I get a chance.