Ice Boating on Clary Lake, February 2017

I’ve never ice boated on a snow-covered lake before. It was quite the experience. And fast. Very fast. And cold. Very cold. The boat actually belongs to my friend Brian who clocked one of his runs on the ice boat at 42.8 kph = 26.6 mph. Felt like we were flying! He was also trying out his homemade surf skier whatchamacallit, made from a pair of skis and a windsurfer sail. I didn’t try it.

January 2017 Water Level Chart Archived

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January 2017

I have archived the January 2017 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the January chart is nothing, really. Kind of a ho-hum chart if you ask me. The lake level was at -48″ below the normal high water mark (HWM) at the start of the month and ended the month at -36.5″ or about a foot higher. The lake level was severely low for the whole summer and fall so seeing the lake rise marginally higher has been comforting. That said, the gate on the dam has been open about half way for the entire month, considerably more than the opening called for in the Water Level Order. Anyway you want look at it, the dam owner is still in clear violation of the Clary Lake water level order.

We received 2.84″ of precipitation during the month, some in the form of snow and some as rain. Average precipitation for January is 2.6″ so we’re starting the month a little ahead for a change.  We started this year in Severe drought (drought intensity D2) but we’re now in Moderate drought (drought intensity D1) however with the ground frozen, very little water is going to get into the water table until spring.

 

21 January 2016: Paul Kelley Introduces himself to the Whitefield Selectboard

Paul Kelley attended the regularly scheduled open (public) meeting of the Whitefield Selectboard on the evening of January 17th to discuss with them issues he has with some Town records, in particular certain Planning Board Meeting minutes. Reference may be had to the following letter which he presented to the Board in open session, which clearly explains his concerns, and what he would like to Town to do about them.

Here is the letter, presented without further comment:

Kelley Letter to Whitefield Selectboard January 17, 2017

It is not clear whether the Town intends to respond to this letter.

16 January 2017: Small Plane Over Clary Lake

It’s been a fun couple of days on Clary Lake what with good ice and better weather. Today a friend of mine flew up from southern Maine in his Canard aeroplane to check out the ice boats on Damariscotta lake. On his way back he buzzed Clary Lake and took this video. I expected him so I went out to watch. If you look closely you can actually see me standing out on the ice along with a green lawn chair:

He made several passes over the lake. On his second one I got this video of him:

01 January 2017: Happy New Year from the Clary Lake Association

The Clary Lake Association Board wishes you all a very Happy New Year and hope you find peace and prosperity in the coming year. We look forward to continuing to serve you in 2017 and remain deeply committed to doing everything in our power to bring about a final and lasting resolution of the Clary Lake water level crisis, and better serve the interests of all Clary Lake shore owners in the coming year. We will of course need your help to achieve these and other goals, and we look forward to your continued support of our organization. 2016 saw a record increase in Association membership, and unparalleled participation by our members. The coming year is going to require that much and more. We’re counting on you to help keep up the momentum!

I had toyed with the idea of sending around a “Year-End Survey” to our membership soliciting comments and suggestions for the year ahead, but I’ve decided instead to keep it simple and use our website forum to invite comments and suggestions from both members and non-members alike. Please let us know how the Clary Lake Association can better serve you- our members, and our community, this coming year. Our handy (and anonymous if you want!) Contact & Feedback form works well for this purpose, or you can contact me (or the Board) directly with your suggestions. We really do want to hear from you, whatever it is you have to say.

A good example of such a suggestion, and one which has been a personal goal of mine for some time now, is for the Clary Lake Association see to having several dry fire hydrants installed in key locations around the lake to provide year round access to water for fighting fires. These hydrants would result in a lower ISO rating for the Whitefield and Jefferson communities which would directly translate into lower fire insurance premiums. This suggestion is already on the table for discussion at our next Board meeting.

So give it some thought. We look forward to hearing from you.

December 2016 Water Level Chart Archived

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December 2016

And so we come to the end of another year (#5) of water level measurements. I have archived the December 2016 Water Level Chart (at left) and the Whole Year 2016 chart (see below). The most notable feature of the December chart is the the fact that lake only came up 8.76″ over the course of the month despite us having received 3.88″ of precipitation; this is a runoff multiplier of only 2.25X or about 1/2 of what it should be this time of year, even with a low water table. No doubt the reason for this is because the dam’s gate was mostly open for almost the entire month. Normally with the ground frozen and having received that much rain, the lake would have risen twice as much. Continue reading →

29 December 2016: Happy New Year and End of Year Test Post

Because I can’t leave well enough alone and I needed something to post about. I’m testing some new software to automatically submit new website posts to Facebook. The current system I’ve been using usually (but not always) posts to Facebook OK but it doesn’t post to Google+ at all. It also uses a backend plugin that is a real pig and I’m trying to get rid of it. Slowly I’m phasing out its various functions. This publicize to Facebook feature is one of the functions I want to replace. Our Clary Lake Association Facebook page drives quite a bit of traffic to this website. I’ll worry about Google+ some other time.

Everyone have a safe New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year!

26 December 2016: The Year in Review

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2016 Boat Launch Cleanup

As 2016 draws to a close it is a good time to reflect on what has (hasn’t) been accomplished this year. In many ways it has been a banner year for the Clary Lake Association: with 116 current members, our membership is at an all-time high and community involvement in and support of the Association and it’s activities has never been higher. Even during the height of the water level petition process in 2012 and 2013 we only had at most 70 members, and last year we had 82 members. Furthermore, our current membership is engaged and informed like never before and willing to step up and participate when the need arises (see picture above!).

DSC_16902016 was the 5th full year that we’ve been engaged in our battle to restore Clary Lake which fact in and of itself, is rather sobering. Who would have thought this problem would take so long to resolve? The fact that after all this time we’re still waiting for the Water Level Order to be enforced is simply hard to believe, and even harder to accept. Through it all the Clary Lake Association Board has steadfastly remained diligent, attentive, and responsive, and 2016 was no exception. We officially met 12 times this past year to conduct Association business, discuss strategy, and make decisions, not to mention the piles of emails sent and phone calls made. It has literally been a full time job for some of us, and I’m deeply grateful for the dedication and commitment of all our Board members. It’s a great group of people and I’m proud to count myself among them. That said, I feel like we have not done Continue reading →

11 December 2016: Clary Lake Fully Iced Over [UPDATED AGAIN]

UPDATED AGAIN: David Hodson emailed me this afternoon to say that the final patch of open water has finally frozen over making the official Ice-In date this year December 12. Honest!

UPDATED: Clary Lake NOT fully iced over. David Hodsdon and I conferred this morning and he told me his end was fully frozen over, but he failed to notice about 1/2 an acre of open water in the cove by Jack Holland’s house. I guess there were some geese swimming in it this afternoon. Oh well. Retraction time. Stay tuned!

Thanks to overnight temperatures around 0° Clary Lake was completely frozen over this morning. It remains to be seen if the ice cover can survive the rain, snow and warmer temperatures forecast over the next couple of days.

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View Full Sized Image

10 December 2016: Gate Status, Lake Status

IMG_20161210_113204 (Custom)From the “For What It’s Worth” department, the Clary Lake dam owner was seen at the dam this morning. It appears the purpose of the visit was to close the gate, at least partway; it now appears to be about 1/2 open though it’s still not closed enough to back up water (see picture at left). He opened the gate all the way last Saturday apparently in a knee-jerk reaction to an alleged trespass on the dam by some duck hunters, which he reported to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department- prompting a visit from an officer. I’ve not heard any more about that incident. The gate had been completely closed since early July until he opened it last weekend.

We see good skating on Clary Lake about 1 year out of 3 (if we’re lucky) and even when we do have good skating, it usually doesn’t last that long. This year is not looking like one of the good ones but it is early yet. The picture at left is a composite photo showing simultaneous views from all three Clary WebCams taken yesterday morning- it’s actually a screenshot from my tablet IP Cam Monitor app. From the lake-level views of Cams 1 and 3 (the top two images) it looks like the lake is entirely frozen over but in fact from my second-story office window I can see that the whole north half of the lake is still wide open. Also, as you can see in the bottom image, the entire east-end of the lake is open. I estimate only about 1/4 of the lake is iced over so far, and what ice we have isn’t looking very good.

Continue reading →

05 December 2016: Update on the Recent Police Visit to Clary Lake Dam

I spoke to a Lieutenant with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department today to see if I could find out more about the Lincoln County Deputy’s visit to the Clary Lake dam that I wrote about last Saturday. All the Lieutenant would tell me was there had been a complaint made of “criminal trespass” by Mr. Kelley and that he couldn’t say more at this time due to the ongoing investigation. I thanked him and hung up.

I have collected a little additional information about what was going on that Saturday morning by the dam, from talk around town. Apparently very early Saturday morning while it was still dark, some duck hunters parked two trucks in the field next to the fence near the dam, on property Jane Chase is caretaker of. Presumably they then launched their canoes and headed upstream to hunt. I know there were hunters up in the meadow that morning because I heard gunshots from that direction about 6:30 AM while I was having my first cup of coffee. Several people reported seeing those 2 trucks parked there later in the morning. They were long gone by the time I drove by around 1PM and saw Mr. Kelley talking to the police officer.

Did Mr. Kelley really call the police because some duck hunters parked their trucks on the neighbor’s property and headed upstream to hunt, or was something else going on? We may never know. I doubt we’ll hear much more about what happened Saturday unless there’s something in this week’s Lincoln County News. So move along folks, nothing to see here.

 

03 December 2016: Clary Lake Dam Gate Fully Opened Today

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Clary Lake dam owner Paul Kelley, Jr. opening the dam’s gate today, December 3, 2016.

Today the Clary Lake dam owner was seen opening the dam’s gate (pictured at left) shortly after meeting on-site with a Lincoln County Deputy. I have no idea why Mr. Kelley summoned the police to his property or whether it had anything to do with his decision to open the gate today, but I was told by a passerby that he and the officer were seen standing on the road in front of the dam before he opened the gate and that Mr. Kelley looked “upset” and was “waving his arms” and pointing at the dam. I can’t imagine what Mr. Kelley’s problem might be.

The gate has been effectively closed since mid-summer, and I have been wondering if or when Mr. Kelley was going to open the gate this fall to provide the Minimum Flows required in the Clary Lake Water Level Order . Flows vary throughout the year: between November 16th and December 31st the Order says the gate should be opened 0.9 feet to provide 15.5 cfs (cubic feet per second) of outflows. Mr. Kelley has in fact opened the gate all the way, approximately 2.5 feet, letting out way more water than the recommended volume. Clearly, Mr. Kelley had more on his mind today than just meeting the minimum flows requirement, and he isn’t particularly interested in garnering anything like goodwill either. It seems to me Mr. Kelley could use a little of that about now.

By early afternoon the water level in the mill pond behind the dam had fallen noticeably. I’ve revised the Water Level Charts to reflect the change in gate status.

November 2016 Water Level Chart Archived

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November 2016

I have archived the November 2016 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable feature of the November chart, like most of the other charts this past summer and fall, is how slow the lake level has been responding to rainfall. I am dismayed at the abysmal rate Clary Lake is filling up this fall and I’m sure a lot of you share that sentiment. Despite having received what seems like a “reasonable” amount of rain over the past two months, the lake level stubbornly refuses to rise as expected. The lake dropped to 60″ below the high water mark back on July 27th and continued from there to drop to a record low of -67.25″ on October 8th. Since then we’ve received 7.31″ of rain which has brought the lake up only a hair over 7″ to -60.17″ below the high water mark on the last day of the month. In a “normal” year that much rain would have brought the lake up the better part of 30 inches or more. Continue reading →