Category Archives: Technical Lake Stuff

26 April 2019: Water Monitoring Resumes for 2019

David measures the wind speed, direction, and temperature.

Kelsie French, David Hodsdon, and I headed out today to kick off the 2019 Clary Lake water quality monitoring season. David started monitoring on Clary Lake in 1975, making this his 44th year on the job! The average secchi disk reading was 3.75 meters (12.3 feet) which is about average for this time of year- spring rains and runoff carries silt into the lake which reduces transparency. It’ll clear up some as summer approaches. Dissolved Oxygen pretty uniform throughout the water column, also a normal condition for this time of year. We had planned on obtaining a water sample for Phosphorus testing but the weather today just wasn’t conducive to spending any more time on the water than we had to. After all, it’s not like we were fishing. At 9.8° C the water temperature was actually warmer than the air! All I can say is I look forward to more pleasant weather this year than what we had to put up with today!

You’ll find water quality data back to 2012 on our Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page.

14 April 2019: Ice Out!

Finally, Clary Lake is ice free! I know most of you on the north and northwest shores have had open water for the better part of a week, but ice persisted on the south and east sides until yesterday. Even this morning (picture at left) there was still a large raft of ice down by the State boat launch, which largely disappeared by noon. While ice out seemed to take forever this year, the median date for ice out is April 13th (half occur before and half occur after that date) so we’re really right about on schedule. Ice out means ALL the ice is melted. Check out our Ice-In and Ice-Out page which has records going back to 2001.

Let the boating begin!

March 2019 Water Level Chart Archived

March 2019

I have archived the March 2019 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable thing about this chart is it shows that while we’re still a couple of inches short of the elevation of the high water mark as determined by DEP, the lake has nonetheless reached the highest level we can realistically expect to maintain for any length of time: as of this morning, the water level has begun trickling over the top in two low spots, one on the left side of the dam and the other on the right. By my reckoning Clary Lake hasn’t had this much water in it since 2010. I’ve been waiting for this moment for 8 years: as the lake has filled with water, my heart and soul have filled with gratitude. Over the past few weeks as the lake level has gradually risen, I’ve been seeing water in places where I remember it when I was a kid, and Clary Lake was my playground: the marsh by the Whitefield and Jefferson Town Line, one of my favorite haunts and fishing spots as a kid, is full once again with high water extending all the way to the culvert under the road. Also the marsh at the inlet from Three Corner Pond on Route 126 where we used to launch our boats before the State boat launch was built is once again full water. Continue reading →

21 March 2019: Lake Level Staff Gauge Installed

Work to come into compliance with the Clary Lake Water Level Order (WLO) continues. Special Condition #6 of the WLO requires that the dam owner install a lake level staff gauge graduated in feet and tenths of a foot located in a “publicly visible location” behind the dam. The zero foot mark on the gauge must mark the elevation of the Normal High Water Mark (HWM) which has been previously determined to be at an elevation of 151.17 feet. I had already purchased the staff gauge from Forestry Suppliers earlier this winter. It’s nicely constructed of steel with a baked-on enamel coating, easy to read graduations, and brass grommets in the screw holes. It’s attached to a piece of pressure treated 5/4 board with stainless steel screws which in turn is attached to two steel brackets bolted to the gate structure with stainless bolts. It should prove serviceable for many years. Many thanks to Colin Caissie (pictured below left) for designing and fabricating the brackets to attach the staff gauge to the gate structure, and for helping with the installation. Continue reading →

February 2019 Water Level Chart Archived

February 2019

I have archived the February 2019 Water Level Chart (at left). The most noticeable thing about this chart is it’s BORING, and how pleasant for a change not seeing rapidly fluctuating water levels! The lake level gradually dropped only 3.72″ over the course of the month from a high of -10.68″ below HWM at the start of the month to -14.40″ below the HWM at the end of it, staying pretty much right within the range we were looking for. Our goal was to keep the lake level right about 12″ to 18″ below the HWM. We didn’t have any major precipitation events: rainfall for the month of February was slightly below average with precipitation of only 2.16″ bringing us to 5.36″ for the year, slightly above the average of 5.04″ thanks to a extra wet January. We do have a reasonable snow pack developing so runoff this spring should be more than sufficient to raise the lake level up to the HWM, for the first time in over 10 years. Continue reading →

Lake Stewards of Maine’s Winter 2018-19 Water Column Newsletter Is Out

I just received my copy of the 2018-2019 issue of the Water Column, the newsletter of Lake Stewards of Maine (formerly the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitor Program). This issue has a great article by Roberta Hill which discusses the impact climate change is having on lakes in Maine, and everyone who cares about Clary Lake should read it. While there is debate in some quarters about the causes of climate change, there is little question that our climate is in fact changing and the effect it is having on Maine lakes are very real. If there’s one thing the last 8 years of our lake level crisis has shown us it is that lakes are fragile and tenuously balanced ecosystems and that seemingly small changes in water levels, water temperature, and nutrient load can have profound impact on lake ecology. Now that we’ve succeeded in restoring the historical water level regime of Clary Lake, I think our primary challenge going forward will be to preserve Clary’s water quality, and keep it free of invasive plant and animal species. To quote the article:

“We now have sufficient data to know with a high degree of certainty that, like much of the northeast, Maine is getting warmer, experiencing wetter winters and springs, drier summers, and more frequent extreme weather events (including floods and droughts). The shifting climate is causing our growing seasons in Maine to become longer, and the periods of ice cover on our lakes to become shorter. All of the changes described above pose serious challenges for lakes.”

The Clary Lake Association has been a long time supporting member of the Lake Stewards of Maine and has been monitoring water quality on Clary Lake since 1975 making Clary the 3rd longest monitored lake in the state. We’ll be starting up the 2019 water monitoring season again in late April or early May.

January 2019 Water Level Chart Archived

January 2019

I have archived the January 2019 Water Level Chart (at left). The best thing about this chart is that it shows that for the first time in over 8 years, the lake level was right where was supposed to be, when it was supposed to be there. The lake level remained above -24″ below the HWM for the entire month. How sweet is that! For the first 3/4 of the month, the lake level hovered right around 18″ below the HWM, give or take a few inches. Then we received 1.66″ of rain on the 24th which caused the lake to rise almost 1 foot, topping out at about 5″ below the HWM. That was higher higher than we’ve seen the lake in over 8 years, and actually than we wanted to see it so we opened the gate a foot to release more water in addition to what was already going over the weir. That halted the lake level rise. Since then it’s been falling gradually, ending the month not quite 10″ below the HWM. Welcome to the new normal! Continue reading →

25 January 2019: Lake at a Level Not Seen in Years

The lake has so far risen over 8″ as a result of yesterday’s heavy rain and is now 7 inches below the normal high water mark. The last time it was this high was 9 years ago, in 2010. It will continue to rise a little more over the next couple of days before it starts falling again. Ideally this time of year we’d like it between 12 and 24 inches below the HWM.
IMG_20190125_084053 (Medium)

December 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

December 2018

I have archived the December 2018 Water Level Chart (at left) bringing us to the end of what has turned out to be the LAST YEAR of sub-par water levels for the foreseeable future. At this time last year the lake level was 42″ below the HWM and we were waiting for Justice Billings to rule on the appeal of the Clary Lake Water Level Order while at the same time beginning to entertain the possibility of actually buying the Clary Lake dam from Paul Kelley’s bankruptcy estate. The ruling on the appeal came a few months later in February; the purchase of the dam, well that took a little longer. Looking back, what a landmark year it has been. Continue reading →

November 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

November 2018

I have archived the November 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). I’m not sure what to say about it except that the lake level is too dam high! It is ironic that for the last seven years I’ve been wishing for HIGHER water, only to now find myself hoping for a LOWER water level so we can complete repairs to the Clary Lake dam. The lake rose only 6″ in October, and I had hoped that gradual rate of increase of the water level would continue into November, but it was not to be. We started the month at -48.84″ below the high water mark, peaked at -29.88″ on the 15th, and ended the month at -32.64″ below the high water mark. There is currently about 8″ of water flowing over the original log flume, enough to prevent finishing the repairs at this time.

We received 7.10″ of rain in November or a whopping 2.73″ more than the average for the month. This brings us to 39.06″ for the year to date, 0.39″ more than average. I suppose, considering how much rain we received in November, we’re lucky the lake didn’t rise even more. I attribute this to the vastly increased outflows resulting from opening up the original 7′ wide log flume in the middle of the dam on November 9th. Continue reading →

25 November 2018: Clary Lake Ice Report and Repair Update

Clary Lake was completely ice-covered by late afternoon on Friday, November 23rd, just one day after Thanksgiving. This is the earliest ice-in date we’ve recorded since we started keeping track (check out the Ice-In and Ice-Out Dates page). The lake was mostly frozen over a few days earlier but for some large areas of open water; to qualify as “iced in” the lake has to be fully covered by ice. As a kid I recall ice skating on Thanksgiving, but that was more than 50 years ago; in recent years, ice-in has been more likely in mid-December. It remains to be seen if the lake remains ice-covered with the somewhat warmer weather we’re expecting this coming week. If you plan to venture out on it, please be careful! Some areas of ice will be plenty thick while other areas may be unsafe; warmer temperatures, and rainfall will not help the situation.

Repairs to the Clary Lake dam have been on hold for a week; the combination of bitter cold temperatures and a high water level at the dam forced a temporary halt to the work and the PCS crew took the better part of Thanksgiving week off. With warmer weather forecast for this coming week and with water levels at the dam falling nicely, we’re hopeful that repairs can be completed in the next week or two before winter sets in with a vengeance. We’re hoping that today’s storm and the one due in next Tuesday won’t result in much precipitation.

The final phase of dam repairs will consist of filling the 7′ wide hole in the dam with new concrete and installing a 5′ wide weir in the top. The weir will have slots on either side for stop logs which will be used to adjust the lake level. Historically, repairs to the Clary Lake dam have been facilitated by the construction of a temporary cofferdam between the old Narrow Gauge railroad abutments, but one side is now owned by Aquafortis Associates LLC and we have not received permission from Richard Smith (owner of Aquafortis) to construct a cofferdam there. Consequently we’ve made other plans. In any case, repairs will be completed, sooner or later.

Stay tuned!

October 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

October 2018

I have archived the October 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). As you can see the water level in October very gradually rose a total of only 6.12″ over the course of the month from a low of -55.32″ below the Normal High Water Line on the first day of the month to -49.20″ on the last. We received 3.96″ of rain during that period and the fact that the lake didn’t rise more is an indication of how depleted the water table has been. Average rainfall for this date is 34.30″ and we’re only at at 31.96″ or 2.34″ below normal. You’ll notice the chart shows the dam’s gate is still wide open. We’re going to leave it open until the repairs to the dam have been completed.

September 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

September 2018

I have archived the September 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). The water level in September for the most part reversed the downward trend of previous months, remaining pretty much flat for the whole month but for the last week when heavy rains resulted in a modest lake level rise of 1.68″ by the end of the month. Given that we received 5.38″ of rain in September, it’s amazing that it didn’t rise a lot more than that, a clear indication of how depleted the ground water supply has been. The last rain event on September 25 and 26 dumped 2.5″ of rain on Clary Lake which in a normal year should have brought the lake up 10″ resulted in a minuscule 1.56″ lake level rise.

Despite having received way more rain than the normal 3.74″ for September, at only 28.00″ so far we’re still shy almost 2″ of the yearly average of 29.93″ for this date. It’s been dry: I recorded measurable rainfall on only 4 days during September.

Now that we’ve received a favorable ruling from the bankruptcy court, we’re hoping to get started on dam repairs later this fall. I think it’s safe to say you’re never going to see Clary Lake this low again 🙂

August 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

August 2018

I have archived the August 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). The water level in August continued the slow but steady decline seen in June and July, falling only 3.00″ over the course of the month or about a tenth of an inch per day. Most of the drop now is due to evaporation as there’s virtually no water flowing down the channel and out the dam.

It’s still dry: we received only 2.95″ of rain during August, 0.36″ less than normal. So far this year we’ve received 22.62″ or 3.57″ less than average for this date. According to the National Integrated Drought Information System we’re currently experiencing “Abnormally Dry” which I suppose it about right.

Since posting about finding some Purple Loosestrife growing around Clary Lake last month (see: “Have You Seen This Plant?”) I have continued to find and remove more plants. Many thanks to those of you who have reported loosestrife around the lake. The other day I spotted another group of plants over by the inlet to the lake in Jefferson and plan to go dig them up/pull them out this weekend.

No, I don’t know when the Bankruptcy Judge is going to rule. Patience people. It’ll happen.

July 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

July 2018

I have archived the July 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). The water level in July continued the steady decline seen in June though at a slightly reduced daily rate, falling only 4.32″ over the course of the month. An indication of how steady the decline was is the “coefficient of determination” (the R² or “R squared” value in the inset box on the chart) which in simple terms is a statistical measure of how close the data points fit a straight line. An R² value of 0.9181 means the data points collected over the month are very close to a straight line (a perfect fit would have an R² of 1.00). Because of the relative drought we’re experiencing, the 3.30″ of rain we received during the month had very little effect on the lake level, which only rose marginally for a few days towards the end of the month. We end the month about where we were this time last year, only 1.68″ lower than on July 31, 2017. Continue reading →

16 July 2018: CLA Welcomes Its Newest Water Quality Monitor

Please join me in welcoming our newest Water Quality Monitor, Kelsie French! Kelsie and her brother Jeffrey own a camp over on Duncan Road and have been long time supporters of the Clary Lake Association. Kelsie has been helping out from time to time and last Saturday successfully completed the Lake Stewards of Maine (formerly the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitor Program) training for, and has been certified qualified for taking, Secchi Disk Transparency readings and Total Phosphorus Surface Grabs. Next up is getting certified on the use of our YSI Dissolved Oxygen meter. Ever two weeks from (usually) late April until late October we venture out onto the lake to record water temperature, transparency, and dissolved oxygen data. This information is sent into the VLMP and also gets posted on our Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page. Transparency data is also posted on the “Near Real-Time Lake Data.”

We now have 4 active water quality monitors on Clary: David Hodsdon (CA# HO-0042), Jack Holland (CA# HO-0551), George Fergusson (FE-2648), and Kelsie French (CA# FR-2497). The pictures on this post were taken back on July 7th.

June 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

I have archived the June 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). The water level in June continued the steady decline seen in May though at a slightly reduced daily rate, up until the 28th of the month when we received a welcome 2.0″ of rainfall over 24 hours, which reversed the downward trend, barely. The ground has been so dry however that there was virtually no runoff from the precipitation event with the lake rising only 2.28″ as a result. In a normal year with normal rainfall and normal ground water supplies, that 2″ of rain would have brought the lake up close to a foot. Rainfall for the month was 3.67″ which is slightly above average, but for the year to date at 16.37″ we’re still a good 3″ shy of where we should be on this date.

On the bright side, the slower fall in lake level over the month contributed to a successful Loon nesting effort, with 2 chicks hatching out on the 24th of June.

May 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

May 2018

I have archived the May 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). What is particularly notable about the May chart is the steady decline of the lake level over the course of the month, falling from -18.24″ below the Normal High Water Mark [“NHWM”] on May 1st to -43.44″ below the NHWM on May 31st. That’s a total drop of 25.2″ in 31 days or about 0.8″ per day. Not once did the lake level rise, or remain stable. The reason for this steady decline in the water level was due to a lack of rainfall and of course, because the gate is wide open. As dry as it has been, the little rain we did receive didn’t slow down the rate at which the lake was falling one bit. During the first half of the month water was also exiting the lake through the hole in the dam.

We received only 1.17″ of rain in May or 2.5″ less than the May average of 3.7″ which puts us fully 3.2″ shy of rainfall for the year to date. It looks like we’re headed for another dry summer. For some reason, the National Integrated Drought Information System is showing us as WET which does not jive with my understanding.

April 2018 Water Level Chart Archived

April 2018

I have archived the April 2018 Water Level Chart (at left). There is nothing particularly notable about the April chart but it was nice to see the lake rise above -24″ for the last 3rd of the month (the lake is currently about as low as you’ll ever see it once we own the dam). The level lake rose over 18″ as the result of 4.5″ of rainfall despite the gate being wide open. The hole in the dam appears to have been partially blocked by flotsam which impeded the outflow. Precipitation for the year stands at 11.53″ which is only 0.68″ less than average. Perhaps the drought trend that has plagued us for the last couple of years is ending?

27 April 2018: Water Quality Monitoring Resumes for 2018

Secchi Disk readings 1975 to Present

We have resumed our water quality monitoring for the 2018 season. David Hodsdon and I went out this morning and collected secchi disk (transparency, see chart at left) readings and dissolved oxygen data as well as a water sample to be analyzed for Total Phosphorus content. We go out and collect data every 2 weeks during the boating season. This data gets sent to the Volunteer Lake Monitor Program (formerly VLMP, now Lake Stewards of Maine) and is also available on this site on our Water Monitoring Data page. The Secchi disk chart shows a general decline in water transparency over the last 15 years with a marked decline over the last 7-10 years, no doubt the result of generally lower water levels associated with Pleasant Pond Mill’s mismanagement of the lake level.

Total Phosphorus

Decreasing transparency goes hand in hand with increasing levels of Total Phosphorus, as the chart at left shows. Phosphorus is plant food and is the primary cause of algae blooms which have been increasingly a problem in recent years. We experienced our first algae bloom in 2009 and have experienced blooms almost every year since then, the exception being 2016 and 2017 when we were in severe drought. Drought means lack of rain which results in less runoff which results in less Phosphorus entering the lake. Higher Phosphorus levels combined with lower water levels are a recipe for algae blooms.

Hopefully all this will change once the Clary Lake Association owns the dam.