25 February 2016: Webcam Update

campic2-2-25-16Foscam has said they’ll send me a replacement F19803P camera to replace the one that died and I hope to get ClaryCam1 back up and running within the week. Some  of you will have noticed that ClaryCam2 was offline from about 10 PM last night until around 3 PM this afternoon. Turns out the 12 volt power supply died, I gave David my old one. Also the IP address changed so we had to bring the camera inside for a while to get it reconfigured.

Those of you who have been connecting to the ClaryCams in real time and found them b0rken will find ClaryCam2 is now accessible at the old address. Will be adding a different, hopefully more reliable DDNS service later this spring.

19 February 2016: Update on LD 1566 “An Act Concerning the Establishment of Water Levels”

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] am pleased to announce that at a work session held earlier today the Legislature’s Environment & Natural Resource Committee voted unanimously Ought Not To Pass on LD 1566 “An Act Concerning the Establishment of Water Levels.” In it’s place, DEP will add a requirement to their rules pertaining to water level petitions for a public informational meeting including notices in local papers, a mailing to all lake front owners, the dam owner, and the town(s) in which the impoundment resides. The purpose of the meeting is to inform everyone of the requirements of the law governing water level petitions and the actual petition and adjudicatory hearing processes, and to encourage people to find a negotiated solution to their water level issues.

Many thanks to all the people who advocated against this legislation including the Clary Lake Association, the Branch Pond Association, the Midcoast Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, the Maine Lakes Society, the Maine Audubon and others parties.

 

23 February 2016: Medius L3C changes Registered Agent (again)

[dropcap]For[/dropcap] those of you keeping track of such things, be advised that Medius L3C has changed Registered Agents again. The change was not unexpected and I’ve been checking the State’s Interactive Corporate Services website a couple of times a week in anticipation of it occurring, with the only question really being who they would choose? Well now we know: the new Registered Agent is Wiscasset attorney William Logan who interestingly enough was the Registered Agent for the Clary Lake Association at the time of our incorporation back in 1995. Small world.

Mr. Logan is the 3rd Registered Agent to represent Medius L3C since last October, the other 2 being Merritt Carey and most recently, Public Information Resource, Inc.

17 February 2016: PPM Appeals Superior Court Ruling on Motion to Dismiss

[dropcap]On[/dropcap] Tuesday PretiFlatherty attorneys filed in Superior Court an appeal of the Order issued by the Court back on January 25th approving the State’s Motion to Dismiss (see: “Superior Court grants State’s Motion to Dismiss“). The granting of the State’s Motion resulted in Pleasant Pond Mill LLC being removed from the proceedings. The granting of the State’s motion also made moot the Petitioner’s pending motion to amend their petition. The Court gave lawyers for Aquafortis Associates LLC 21 days to file a new, amended petition. That deadline was last Monday which turned out to be a holiday, so the filing was made yesterday. I picked up a copy this morning.

I am not surprised that they have decided to challenge the lower Court’s decision by appealing it to the Maine Supreme Court, and I expect they intend to appeal every unfavorable ruling that the Court hands down in this case. Classic delay tactics. This how the game is played. What will be telling is how quickly the Court acts on this. At least the filing is mercifully short:

14 February 2016: What’s Happening?

[dropcap]It’s[/dropcap] been over 2 weeks since the foreclosure/auction of the Clary Lake dam allegedly took place and we still don’t know who the new owner is, or if a transfer took place at all. Nothing has been recorded in the registry of deeds, and DEP has not to my knowledge been notified that there is a new owner of the dam. And Butch Duncan isn’t talking. So what are we to think? I have been getting calls and emails from people wanting to know what’s going on but sadly, I don’t have any answers. I could speculate, but I won’t. I must admit I expected we’d have heard something by now, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by what is happening.

It seems Medius L3C is the key to sorting all this out, but good luck trying to contact them for answers as the company has no mailing address or phone number, and no contact name. This is no doubt by design. The current registered agent, a reputable company in Readfield by the name of Public Information Resource Inc., is owned by a man named Ken Keene. When I asked him for contact information for Medius L3C he gave me the name and address of Ms. Merritt Carey who was the former registered agent. However, if you contact her she claims to have nothing to do with the company any more and refers you back to Mr. Keene. You end up chasing your tail. In short, nobody including the registered agent knows who owns Medius L3C or how to reach them. Apparently the only way to contact Medius L3C is via their email address: [email protected].

Continue reading →

10 February 2016: ClaryCam1 Out of Order

Schedule_20160108-115600ClaryCam1 stopped working yesterday morning. It remained online but was uploading it’s pictures to a non-existent directory… I rebooted it yesterday afternoon but it did not come back to life and is now unresponsive. This afternoon I’ll bring the camera inside, plug a network cable into it, and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it.

The Clary Lake webcams are a pretty popular feature with website visitors and get a lot of traffic. I bought this particular camera last fall, it cost about $90 and was paid for with a donation from a Clary Lake Association member who wishes to remain anonymous. If I can’t get this camera working again, I’ll start saving up to buy a new one. Stay tuned.

06 February 2016: Maine Lakes Society Issues Alert on LD 1566

I received the following email from the Maine Lakes Society regarding the upcoming 10 February 2016 public hearing on LD 1566 “An Act Concerning the Establishment of Water Levels.” The Clary Lake Association will be testifying in opposition to the bill at the public hearing. A copy of the prepared testimony will be presented here at a later date.

Many impounded Lakes Will Be Affected by the Outcome of LD 1566 to be Heard this Wednesday before the Environment and Natural Resources Committee
Maine Lakes Society
Fluctuating lake water levels affect a host of stakeholders.
Water Level Bill Raises Concern
Water level issues on Maine’s great ponds raise major concerns for a long list of stakeholders. These include lake shorefront property owners and lake associations, state agencies, organizations and individuals concerned with maintaining navigable waterways and habitat for fishes, birds and other wildlife in and on surface and coastal waters, anglers, hunters and other recreationists, municipalities dependent upon lakefront property tax revenues to provide needed services, the Departments of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Marine Resources, and Environmental Protection which is charged with maintaining water quality standards and the designated uses of great ponds existing as of 1978 under the anti-degradation clause of the Clean Water Act, as well as all Maine citizens – to whom these waters belong.
 
LD 1566, An Act Concerning the Establishment of Water Levels, seeks to change Maine’s existing water level law by requiring 3rd party mediation before the Maine Department of Environmental Protection MEDEP) holds the required adjudicatory hearing to settle such water level disputes.  LD 1566 also introduces a new and substantial cost for such a hearing of up to $20,000. 
 
We oppose LD 1566 because the high cost of mediation and newly monetized adjudicatory process effectively cancel the right of citizens to petition the state for redress of environmental harm. The current, entirely satisfactory, law assures the constitutional right of citizens to equal protection under the law because it requires MEDEP Commissioner  to hold adjudicatory hearings when petitioners seek redress of environmental harm, and it should not be altered to lessen those rights. LD 1566 effectively removes those rights by imposing such a high cost barrier as to nullify citizens’ ability to exercise them.  This will negatively impact the voluntary grassroots lake associations dedicated to protecting lake water quality, wildlife habitat, and the social, economic and recreational benefits of Maine’s great ponds.
 
LD 1566 will be heard by the Environment and Natural Resources Committee on February 10 in Room 216 of the Cross Office Building, Augusta.  If water levels concern you, if you don’t want the water level law changed, if you wish to protect citizens’ rights to petition the state for redress of environmental harm, please write to the Environment and Natural Resources Committee via the Clerk of the Committee or testify in person.  You can also follow the hearing live on Wednesday Morning.
Maine Lakes Society Reports on Lake Policy and Issues
This is the first of several 2016 legislative reports from the Maine Lakes Society.  Check here to see other issues we are following this winter and to share this service with friends, neighbors and colleagues
Maine Lakes Society| [email protected] 

03 February 2016 Lincoln County News: Result of Clary Lake Dam Auction Unknown

Jefferson resident and Clary Lake waterfront owner Butch Duncan submitted the only bid at the auction for the Clary Lake Dam Jan. 29. (Abigail Adams photo)

There is a fascinating article in this week’s Lincoln County News by staff reporter Abigail Adams about the recent foreclosure and auction of the Clary Lake dam. I’ve read it several times and keep finding new things to ponder.

The big question of course, namely who is the new owner of the Clary Lake dam, remains unanswered. The article states that auctioneer Greg Dorr had indicated that the property would be awarded on Monday, February 1st. However, as of press time, neither Butch Duncan or Paul Kelley had been informed of the result of the auction and we’re left guessing as to who now owns the dam. The auctioneer was supposed to drop the bids off at the Yarmouth office of Medius L3C but it appears they never got there. What happened to Butch Duncan’s bid?

Having been involved with numerous real estate transactions and more than just a few foreclosure/auctions over the years in my role as a Professional Maine Land Surveyor, I can safely say that this situation is rather unusual.

Anyways, enjoy the article:

02 February 2016: New 2015 NAIP Aerial Photos Available

NAIP_2015 (Custom)The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) is a Government program that acquires aerial imagery during the growing seasons in the continental U.S. A primary goal of the NAIP program is to make digital ortho photography available to governmental agencies and the public within a year of acquisition. Over the years, the quality, resolution, and coverage as well as distribution methods of NAIP photography has improved greatly.

The last time the government published NAIP photography was in 2013. The NAIP 2015 photography is now available, and it’s pretty good looking. The amount of detail visible given the approximate ground-resolution of 1/2 meter is amazing. For example, you can see Rick Gallion’s sailboat mooring buoy off the end Hodsdon Lane. Eventually the photos will be made available in a variety of sizes and resolutions, but for now the NAIP 2015 photography is only available as “Compressed County Mosaics” (CCM) photographs which are HUGE and hard to manage without special software: the Lincoln County CCM file comes in a 680 megabyte .ZIP file and the image itself is in a super-compressed format “SID” file that covers the entire area of Lincoln County at sub-meter resolution (that’s one big photograph) Honestly, I had no idea what to do with a .SID file so I had to do some research. The picture above is a much-reduced version of a very tiny section of the Lincoln County image. The original photograph is 6281 x 3874 pixels in size.

Continue reading →

01 February 2016: About that Dam Auction

“Dog and Pony Show” is a colloquial term which has come to mean a highly promoted, often over-staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince opinion for political or commercial ends.

The anticipated foreclosure and auction of the Clary Lake dam took place Friday morning at 11 AM on the steps of the Lincoln County Court House in Wiscasset. The auctioneer was a man named Gregg Dorr who introduced himself as a retired attorney from Camden, hired by Medius L3C for the sole purpose of running this event. When questioned, he said his only contact at Medius L3C was with a “managing partner” of the company by the name of Matthew Staples, from Vermont. When questioned about the new Medius L3C Registered Agent, he explained the change in Registered Agent from Ms. Merritt Carey to a Commercial Registered Agent from Readfield was due to a serious heart condition requiring that she give up the job immediately. If you’re interested, here is the Change of Registered Agent Form from the Secretary of State’s website. Continue reading →

01 February 2016: Owners, agencies, neighbors in standoff over defective China dam

[dropcap]There[/dropcap] were two interesting articles about dams in the Central Maine Papers (Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel) this past weekend, one about the Clary Lake dam auction and another by staff writer Peter McGuire about the ongoing Branch Pond water level saga. There are a lot of similarities between the Branch Pond and Clary Lake situations: both petitions were quite contentious and neither Water Level Order has been implemented by the respective dam owners. Branch Pond received their Water Level Order back in June of 2013.

Branch pond is at the headwaters of the West Branch of the Sheepscot River, it’s a beautiful little pond half in China and half in Palermo (another similarity with Clary Lake). We host a few files for Branch Pond on our website.

January 2016 Water Level Chart Archived

1 waterlevelchart_January2016

January 2016

I’ve archived the January 2016 Water Level Chart (at left). The most notable thing about it is that the gate was closed for the first 3 days of the month, and that the lake got up to 15″ below the top of the dam on January 13th. It has fallen steadily at about 1″ per day since then however, and ended the month about 35″ below the top of the dam. For a little more than 1/2 the month the lake level was at or higher than 2 feet below the top of the dam. It hasn’t been that high for that long since sometime in 2010. We received 2.7″ of precipitation for the month, most of it in the form of rain. Average precipitation for January is 2.6″ so we’re just wee bit ahead so far this year though still showing a precipitation deficit from last year.

We had a couple of days of decent ice skating around the 8th of January but then it snowed and rained. The falling water level combined with warming temperatures led to some pretty strange ice conditions later in the month.

You’ll also notice that the black line on the charts at 34″ that marked the approximate bottom of the hole in the dam has been removed. I got rid of it because I no longer believe that figure is accurate.

31 January 2016: Clary Lake Shore Owners Rubin & Ayer File Suit in Superior Court

IMG_20150828_155836 (Custom)

Bob Rubin and Cheryl Ayer sitting on their dock. Photograph by George Fergusson, 28 August 2015

[dropcap]In[/dropcap] yesterday’s Central Maine Papers article about the Clary Lake dam auction, reporter Jessica Lowell attempted to convey a sense of the frenetic, escalating pace of recent events surrounding the Clary Lake water level crisis by listing some of what just took place in January. One item that should have grabbed your attention was the statement regarding Clary Lake shore owners Robert Rubin and Cheryl Ayer, husband and wife lawyers, who have filed suit against Paul Kelley and Richard Smith in Lincoln County Superior Court. They are seeking damages for harm done to their Clary Lake front property as the result of low water conditions that have severely impacted the use and enjoyment of their property. The picture at left, taken by me last August, shows Bob and Cheryl sitting on their dock 6′ above bare rocks. That is as close as I could approach in my boat.

Continue reading →

30 January 2016: Superior Court grants State’s Motion to Dismiss

I must apologize, all the hype and hoopla surrounding the recent foreclosure and auction of the Clary Lake dam property has unfairly eclipsed a much more exciting and significant event that I’m only now finding the time to write about: I learned a couple of days ago that on Monday, January 25th the Lincoln County Superior Court issued a ruling in favor of the State’s motion to dismiss. This is fantastic news and represents a major victory for the Attorney General’s Office, and for DEP and it opens the door for aggressive enforcement action.

The Order itself is quite short and a little hard to understand so I will excerpt and explain as best I can the relevant portions from my lay person’s point of view. If you just want to see the order, scroll to the bottom of the post where I’ve included links to the Order and the briefing documents. First keep in mind that the phrase “motion to dismiss” does not mean that the State has asked the court to dismiss the whole appeal of the water level order, as pleasant a thought as that might be. It means that the State has selectively identified parts and pieces (and in this case, parties) that they feel are not relevant to the case, not applicable under the law, or for some other reason just shouldn’t be in there. Typically when a party files a lawsuit they toss in everything including the kitchen sink. It is the responding party’s prerogative to then ask the Court to cut it down to its essential worthy elements.

Continue reading →

30 January 2016 Central Maine Papers: Clary Lake dam auction draws a single bid

DSC_0804My apologies for not posting something before this about yesterday’s auction of the Clary Lake dam, but I’ve been a little busy. I know there’s a lot of interest in who showed up and what happened. To start, there is an excellent article on the Central Maine Papers site this morning (the print editions being the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel) by Staff reporter Jessica Lowell that will answer some of your questions: 

Clary Lake dam auction draws a single bid

28 January 2016: Strange Clary Lake Ice Conditions

DSC_0795Ice conditions on Clary Lake this winter are pretty strange and I can’t say as I’ve ever seen anything quite like what is happening this year. Currently there is about 7″ of ice on the lake but due to a combination the falling lake level (it’s fallen about 15″ since freezing up), recent snow, and January thaw temperatures, much of the lake is covered by 2″ to 4″ of water on top of the ice. This results in a slushy mixture which adds considerable weight to the ice, pushing it down and forcing water up through holes and cracks in the ice. I probably wouldn’t have been out on the lake in the first place except I saw my neighbor and a friend out setting ice fishing traps using his snow mobile to haul their gear. I decided to walk out and say hello, which is when I encountered the bubbling “spring” in this video: 

What you’re looking at is lake water bubbling up through 4″ of slush from a 1″ diameter hole in the ice. Very disconcerting.

While the ice seems solid enough, it is disconcerting to say the least to be walking along on what appears to be a solid surface and then suddenly breaking through the crust to find yourself standing in 4″ of water. I would advise you use caution if you plan to venture out on the ice, and make sure to check the thickness frequently. Remember, because the dam’s gate is wide open, there’s a current flowing towards the channel which can result in thin ice in places. You were warned.

20 January 2016: Governor’s Nominee for Commissioner of Department of Environmental Protection Confirmed

The following is an excerpt from a Press Release on the Maine.gov website. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Mercer at his confirmation hearing before the Environment & Natural Resources Committee on the afternoon of January 11th. GSF

AUGUSTA – January 20, 2016 Governor Paul R. LePage’s nominees for Adjutant General and Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection have been unanimously confirmed by the Maine Senate.

Paul Mercer was confirmed as the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Paul Mercer worked at Maine Maritime Academy since 2006 and held positions as Associate Professor and Department Chair within the Engineering Department. At the Academy, he has also served as a member of the senior leadership team as the Assistant to the President for Sustainability, where he led the recent Strategic Planning process, among other efforts. Mercer has used this role to promote innovation and environmental initiatives at the Academy.

Paul Mercer has an extensive background in environmental issues. He has worked with renewable energy development, solid fuels and biomass energy systems throughout the United States and Canada. This included acting as the lead developer of an energy project resulting in a 50 percent reduction of emissions at the Bucksport paper mill.

Additionally, Mercer was president of Northeast Engineering in Bucksport from 1983 until 2008. The company provided a full range of consulting services to the power generation field, as well as project development of waste wood, biofuels, de-inking and wood products facilities. He also served as president of Bay Engineering from 1978 until 1982.

Mercer earned a bachelor’s degree in Marine Engineering from Maine Maritime Academy.

20 January 2016 Lincoln County News: Clary Lake Dam Up for Auction

The Clary Lake Dam in December 2015. Due to a foreclosure, an auction has been scheduled for the Clary Lake Dam on Jan. 29. (Photo courtesy Clary Lake Association)

There’s a well-written, factual article in this week’s Lincoln County News by staff reporter Abigail Adams about the upcoming foreclosure and auction of the Clary Lake dam.

Lincoln County News: Clary Lake Dam Up for Auction

See related article from January 5th in a post on this site entitled Enos assigns Clary Lake dam mortgage to Maine company.