George Fergusson, left, of the Clary Lake Association and Tom Hayes, Whitefield’s assessors’ agent speak to the Whitefield Board of Selectmen Aug. 12. (Kathy Onorato photo)
At their regularly scheduled meeting last Tuesday night, Whitefield Selectmen voted to write a letter to State officials expressing concern over Paul Kelley’s obstinate refusal to implement the Clary Lake water level order, according to an article in this week’s Lincoln County News by Kathy Onorato. In a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, Kelley complained about not having been notified that his company, Pleasant Pond Mill LLC, was going to be discussed at the meeting. For the record, I was at that meeting and the name “Pleasant Pond Mill LLC” was not mentioned once that I can recall though Mr. Kelley’s name was used numerous times. Also for the record, the Selectmen’s agenda was published on the Town’s facebook page on Monday. Apparently Mr. Kelley is not following that page:
Some of you might have noticed a change to the link structure in use on our website. The original “?page_id=266” and “?p=2243” links have been replaced with a human readable “post-name.” For the most part this will be transparent and not require any thought or action on your part. If you have links you’ve saved in your browser for favorite pages, they’ll still work, you’ll just be automagically redirected to the new link. For example, if you point your browser at:
We had a good meeting of the Clary Lake Association yesterday, reasonably well attended though I had expected a somewhat larger turnout given how much we promoted the meeting. I remain somewhat chagrined that so many Clary Lake shore owners either aren’t interested in joining the Association or just can’t be bothered. I’m also surprised that some folks actually show up for the meetings, but are still unwilling to join! What’s up with that? The Clary Lake Association is 
The Clary Lake Association Annual meeting is 
Jack Holland and I performed out bi-monthly water quality monitoring boat trip this morning and obtained a secchi disk reading of 1.80 meters (5.9′) indicative of an algae bloom in progress. This does not come as a huge surprise since we’ve entered a bloom state about this time of year for the past 4+ years. Still, it was an unpleasant discovery. I’ve posted today’s data on the 
Algae blooms are caused by the out-of-control growth of blue-green algae known as cyanobacteria. The most common cyanobacteria is Anabena, shown at left. Algae feeds primarily on phosphorus washed into the lake by runoff and released from bottom sediments in low-oxygen conditions. Undoubtedly the 7.65″ of rain and the resulting runoff we received in July contributed to this bloom, but the lower water levels resulting in reduced lake volume and sediments exposed to wave action and erosion certainly didn’t help any. Here are some pictures of what we can look forward to in about 2 weeks:
Special Condition #4 of the 
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:
Stephen and Christine Coombs, owners of Branch Mills Flower & Grain and the dam on Branch Pond have finally responded to the recently issued Branch Pond water level order. Their stance is angry and defiant: they declare the order to be illegal and therefore refuse the order in its entirety. They list a number of reasons for this decision, many of which we’re familiar with, having already heard them from Paul Kelley:
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 
Tomorrow is the deadline for Paul Kelley to resubmit his revised Water Level Management Plan, originally submitted on May 2nd and found by the Department at that time to be “unsatisfactory” (see 
By now many of you will have received a copy of the Clary Lake Association’s 
“Unacceptable at this time” is how 
Jay Clement of the Army Corps of Engineers has (wisely) cancelled tomorrow’s inter-agency, pre-application meeting with Pleasant Pond Mill LLC because he believes it is “premature” and a “non-starter” given that Mr. Kelley has so many “unresolved issues” with the DEP, not the least of which is pending litigation. This meeting was to be attended by agency representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Maine Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Maine Historic Preservation Commission (MHPC), the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Adminitration (NOAA), the Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (DACF), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Also planning to attend were Whitefield Select Board members Tony Marple and Sue McKeen and Assistant Attorney General Thom Harnett. That the meeting was cancelled does not surprise me. What surprises me is that they waited until the last minute to do it 🙂 I can’t imagine a more egregious waste of time, money, and resources than to have all these knowledgeable and important people sit in a room listening to Paul Kelley complain about how the DEP has done him wrong. Clearly, Paul Kelley isn’t going to get any help from the Army Corps of Engineers: 
“Unacceptable at this time.” That is how the Department of Environmental Protection has characterized Paul Kelley’s