If you have news or an item of interest to other Clary Lake shore owners, email me and I'll post it here. If you want to be on the receiving end of Association news and you're not already on our mailing list, send us your email address and we'll add you. If you are on our list and wonder why you haven't gotten anything lately, well its because we don't send out much. Only important news and updates. No spam, nothing frivolous, and your privacy is protected!

• 26 December 2012:
  • A number of people have asked me recently for DEP contact information. The project manager for the Clary lake water level petition is Beth Callahan. Here is her snail mail address, phone number, and email address:
    
    Beth Callahan, Project Manager
    Department of Environmental Protection
    Division of Land Resource Regulation
    Bureau of Land & Water Quality
    17 State House Station
    Augusta, ME 04333-0017
    
    Phone: 207-446-1586
    Email: beth.callahan@maine.gov
     
  • You've heard that Clary lake is at least partially spring-fed, now we have proof. I was down getting the afternoon water level measurement when I noticed a round hole in the ice about 6" in diameter. Upon examination it turns out there was 48° F ground water boiling up from the bottom- enough to keep the hole in the ice from freezing over even though overnight temperatures were down around 15°. It isn't a very big spring and doesn't amount to much inflow into the lake, but there must be loads of similar small springs around the lake that all together can add up to an appreciable amount of water. My analysis of lake outflows suggests the lake should be dropping perhaps twice as fast as it does. Springs could make up for a good amount of the missing water.
    
    The implications of this is that in a dry year, with the gate open we could see the lake to fall at a much faster rate than we're used to seeing.

• 23 December 2012:
  • After that storm, the lake is largely free of ice again. The same thing happened last year, which was the first time I ever remember that happening.

• 17 December 2012:
  • If you'll recall from the public hearing, a primary concern of the IF&W biologist was that fur bearers (muskrat, beaver, otter) had a stable water level and sufficient water at freeze up to maintain their winter habitat and access to the pond. Clearly, this situation has not been maintained this winter. All the muskrat houses that I've seen recently have been abandoned due to low water and I fear for their survival this winter. I've posted a few pictures in the Fall/Winter 2012 album, one taken about 10 days ago of a muskrat feeding at ice edge and a couple taken yesterday while I was out skating. Unfortunately, my camera froze up (shortly before I froze up) and stopped functioning before I could get pictures of an abandoned muskrat house. If the rain we're expecting tonight and tomorrow disappears the snow we've received, I'll get over and take those pictures.
     
  • According to David Hodsdon, the first day when the lake was completely frozen over was last Saturday, 15 December. Clearly, there is a substantial current running down the lake due to the dam being open- enough current to keep sections of the lake open even in the face of rather cold weather when the lake should be locked up solid. I was a bit premature the last time I posted this table:
    
    Ice-In and Ice-out dates for Clary Lake
    Year      Ice-out     Ice-in
    -------   ----------   ------------
    2001       4/24/01    12/22/01
    2002       3/31/02    11/29/02
    2003       4/16/03    12/05/03
    2004       4/09/04    12/15/04
    2005       4/13/05    12/09/05
    2006       3/23/06    12/30/06
    2007       4/22/07    12/04/07
    2008       4/18/08    12/18/08 Note: Ice started out on the 16 and Loons arrived on the 17.
    2009       4/09/09    12/13/09
    2010       3/18/10    12/17/10
    2011       4/13/11     1/15/12 Note: Ice-in first on 12/19/11 then out a few days later
    2012       3/21/12    12/15/12
    2013
    
    The current also results in large areas where the ice is substantially thinner than elsewhere around the lake, leading to dangerous conditions. Caution is advised. You'll recall that last winter, the channel remained open all winter. I expect the same will happen this year.

• 10 December 2012:
  • I was looking over the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program's Fall 2012 Newsletter and thought I'd post a link to it here. The VLMP is a very busy, very active, and very important program.

• 05 December 2012:
  • We received approximately 0.26" of rain between yesterday and today and this was enough to bring the lake up nearly 2". This works out to a runoff multiplier of around 7x which is quite large. This is an effect of the severely reduced lake surface area and general contour of the shoreline when the water level is at this general elevation (>50" below the top of the dam). If you recall, last spring when the lake was down almost 63" a rainfall of 3.7" brought the lake up 25" which worked out to a comparable runoff multiplier of 6.75x. It all makes sense...

• 03 December 2012:
  • Jane Chase was kind enough to lend me some pictures she took back in the fall of 1993 showing work being done on the dam by her father. I've uploaded them to a new album #7 that I'm calling the Chase Family Archive. Chester Chase owned the dam at the time (Art Enos bought it a couple of years later, in early 1995) and he built a coffer dam at the narrow gauge railroad so he could drain the mill pond to effect repairs on the dam without draining the lake. The pictures are particularly interesting because they show construction details that are not normally visible such as the massive ledge underpinning the southerly and northerly ends of the dam. You also can see the seam between the 3rd and 4th rows of rock where the dam leaks so badly. It is also evident that the dam isn't as wide at it's base as I had thought. One can also see that the concrete plug was severely deteriorated even then.
    
    Many thanks to Jane Chase for making these pictures available. I look forward to posting more pictures from her albums in the future.
     
  • I mentioned the other day that there is more water leaving the lake than can be accounted for by the change in lake level. To try and get a better handle on this issue I resolved to measure the actual stream outflow where the water leaving the dam passes under Route 218 using the simplified weir method. It's such a simple thing to do, I'm surprised it never occurred to me to do it before this. The stream flow rate is the volume of fluid that passes through a given surface per unit of time. Making the necessary measurements turned out to be a pretty simple exercise that I was able to complete without leaving the road (or, perish the thought, trespassing on Pleasant Pond Mill property). Now that I've got the initial measurements done, I'll also be able to make new flow measurements in the future with just a few simple measurements.
    
    So it turns out that yesterday afternoon, water was flowing out of Clary lake at the rate of 30.8 cfs (cubic feet per second). This is a somewhat greater flow than I had estimated based on the lake's daily water level drop. David Hodsdon and I are still chewing on this new data and haven't come to any major conclusions yet except for confirming that in deed, considerably more water is flowing out of the lake each day than can be accounted for by the daily drop in water level. The 2 main variables that affect the water level change are the surface area of the lake and the amount of water flowing into the lake to replace (partially) what is flowing out. For the area calculations we're using the contour report that David Hodsdon presented at the public hearing; a good bathymetric survey would be better. Figuring out how much water is entering the lake is a bit more problematic.
    
    I'll post more about this later.

• 01 December 2012:
  • We received a total of only 0.72" of rain in November, way below normal. The lake level reflects this dearth of precipitation. The lake level has fallen steadily since the beginning of November, starting out at -43.44" below the top of the dam and ending up at -56.76" below the top of the dam, a total drop of 13.32", an average of -0.44" per day. In the latter half of the month, the daily drop was closer to -0.55". The dam's gate has been fully open the entire month. At the rate the lake is falling now, unless the dam is closed or we receive significant precipitation, the lake level will exceed last springs minimum value of -62.5" in only 9 days. As of this morning, we're at -57.36" below the top of the dam.

• 30 November 2012:
  • Another month has come to a close and we're no closer to a resolution of the Clary Lake water level petition now than we were a couple of months ago. Kelley is probably feeling pretty smug about now, thinking he's shot down this petition but I assure you, he has not. This is only a temporary setback. The more time that passes, the more resolute I become in my commitment to pursue this matter to it's inevitable conclusion. I live on Clary lake, this is my home. I will not give up, I will not tire.
     
  • Web site traffic for the month of November has fallen to 370 unique visitors and about 1200 visits- about 1/2 of what it was back in September and October. This is to be expected, there has been after all, little to read about. I'm sure when the petition process starts moving forward again, we'll see renewed interest.
     
  • I have posted the final November 2012 water level chart. David Hodsdon and I have been corresponding recently about the rate at which the lake has been falling. Given how much water is supposedly leaving the lake through the open gate, the lake simply isn't falling fast enough. Now don't get me wrong- the lake is falling too fast for my liking, but the numbers just don't add up. The gate is a 34" diameter pipe, the center of which is approximately 80" below the top of the dam. The formula for calculating the amount of water flowing through the pipe for various water levels is relatively simple, and the amount the lake should fall as a result of the outflow- varying with the surface area of the lake- is likewise pretty straightforward to calculate.
    
    Paul Kelley has stated that with the lake full and the gate wide open, the maximum flow rate is only 55 cubic feet per second (cfs) and that serves to drop the lake level about 1" per day. I would be interested in knowing how he came up with that figure. The value of 1" per day with the gate wide open is easily measured and has been verified independently. However, when the lake is full (approximately 657 acres), draining water out at the rate of 55 cfs should drop the lake 2" per day.
    
    The bottom line: the lake isn't falling fast enough given how much water is supposedly being drained out of it, by almost a factor of 2. Another way to put it: where's all the extra water coming from? Is there more water coming into the lake than we're aware of? Right now we haven't had any appreciable rain since the 8th of November. There is very little runoff evident. Where's all the water coming from? Another question is how inefficient is the penstock? We know it's 34" in diameter and if it were unobstructed it should be able to pass 78 cfs when the lake is full. What's it's effective diameter? How obstructed is it?
    
    To answer these (and other questions) David and I have decided to take the empirical approach and measure the actual flow of water leaving the lake- a relatively simple and straightforward task. I will be talking with David about expanding our exercise to include measuring the flow of the major streams entering Clary lake as well. We'll get to the bottom of this. Stay tuned :)

• 29 November 2012:
  • On my way to work this morning I noted part of the east basin of Clary lake was unfrozen while other parts were iced over and covered with snow. I also spotted some Canada geese over on the west shore where there was a small strip of open water adjoining the marsh. I guess my call for ice-in was a little premature. But it won't be long now.
     
  • While I can see nothing but ice out my window this morning, David Hodsdon informs me that the lake is NOT frozen over in front of his place and his criteria for calling the lake frozen over is when it is FULLY frozen over. So I guess I jumped the gun. The lake is only something like 80% frozen over.
     
  • The lake is frozen over this morning. It looks to be nice and smooth, promising good ice skating once it firms up. Hopefully we won't get any snow or sleet for a while. This is the earliest the lake has frozen over since 2002 when it also froze up on this date. Below are the ice-in and ice-out records that David Hodsdon has maintained since 2001.
    
    Ice-In and Ice-out dates for Clary Lake
    Year      Ice-out     Ice-in
    -------   ----------   ------------
    2001       4/24/01    12/22/01
    2002       3/31/02    11/29/02
    2003       4/16/03    12/05/03
    2004       4/09/04    12/15/04
    2005       4/13/05    12/09/05
    2006       3/23/06    12/30/06
    2007       4/22/07    12/04/07
    2008       4/18/08    12/18/08 Note: Ice started out on the 16 and Loons arrived on the 17.
    2009       4/09/09    12/13/09
    2010       3/18/10    12/17/10
    2011       4/13/11     1/15/12 Note: Ice-in first on 12/19/11 then out a few days later
    2012       3/21/12   
    2013
     
  • I need to switch over to my iced-over water level measuring procedures which includes getting dressed and putting on boots (usually I'm out there in my bathrobe and slippers). I will likely posting water level measurements in the late afternoon as I did last winter. As a result, today's water level measurement will be delayed. Rest assured it likely fell 0.6" since yesterday morning...

• 25 November 2012:
  • As dry as it has been it should be no surprise that the lake level has been falling steadily given that the dam's gate is wide open. At the rate the lake is falling, unless we get some rain the lake will be down over 56" below the top of the dam by the end of this month, only 8" higher than the lowest it has been in 51 years and I have no doubt that this winter the lake will fall below the 62.5" we saw last spring. I've updated the November 2012 Water Level Chart, with trend lines.

• 22 November 2012:
  • Happy Thanksgiving!

• 20 November 2012:
  • I was sitting here this morning drinking my coffee and contemplating writing a letter to Heather Parent exhorting her and her staff to get busy and make a decision on the two motions before her- the PPM motion to dismiss and the Petitioners motion to supplement the record. It feels like months have gone by since we heard anything from them, but I checked and I submitted my final response on 11 October so it really has "only" been 40 days that DEP has been ruminating on this matter. On one hand one would think that would be plenty of time to arrive at a decision but on the other, I'm sure I'm underestimating the real work involved. So I will be patient and allow them more time.

• 12 November 2012:
  • I've been a little busy of late with work and getting ready for winter and just discovered that the web site statistics showed 0 traffic between the 5th through the 10th of November. I don't know what the problem was, I know the server was up and running those days because I uploaded water level charts, etc., but I don't know for a fact if the site itself was up and serving pages. If the site was in fact down drop me an email and let me know, and if it happens again, don't assume it is your computer- let me know please.
     
  • Today is Veterans Day. At the very least I hope you can find time today for a moment of silence, for our veterans. I'll be making a stop at Highland Cemetery later today.
     
  • Still no ruling from DEP on the motions before them- Kelley's motion to dismiss and our motion to supplement the record. I'm of the opinion that they've been ruminating way too long on this matter. Needless to say, until DEP gets off the pot and rules on the motions, web site updates will be infrequent.
     
  • Given the change back to Standard time and my work schedule, I've switched over to making water level measurements in the late afternoon rather than first thing in the morning.

• 02 November 2012:
  • Hurricane Sandy has come and gone and while we for the most part dodged a bullet, other parts of the country did not fare so well. It appears we only received about 1.64" of rain from the storm which brought the lake up a bit over 5" or about 3" rise per inch of rain- a runoff multiplier of about 3x. The lake was 48" down when the storm started. If the lake level had been more like 40" down, the multiplier would have been more like 1x to 1.5x. I would not have thought the runoff multiplier would vary so much with different water levels.
     
  • Web site traffic for the month of October was up fully 25% from September with a total of 559 visitors making 2619 visits to the site. We served up a total of 6414 pages in October, 2218 more than in September. What is most impressive is the bandwidth used more than doubled from 552.18 Megabytes in September to 1.13 Gigabytes in October. In other words, people have been downloading a lot of pictures and files.

• 27 October 2012:
  • I hadn't planned on taking my boat out for a while but with Hurricane Sandy due to hit in a couple of days I decided to take it out today while the weather was nice. With the lake down 48" and only a foot of water over the end of the ramp and even less than that 20' off the end of the ramp, I wouldn't call it really functional.

• 24 October 2012:
  • I wish I had some real news to report but I don't. I haven't heard a thing from DEP on the 2 motions before them- the PPM motion to dismiss and the Petitioner's motion to supplement the record.
     
  • I've revised my estimate of the dam's status from PARTIALLY OPEN to FULLY OPEN. It's a little hard to gauge the amount it is open just by looking at the screw; clearly the gate has not been raised 34" but we also know that the 34" diameter pipe is about 1/3rd blocked at the bottom; therefore opening the gate about 24" would be enough to fully open it. But the bottom line is that now that we've gone a few days without rainfall throwing the fall rate off, the lake is falling about 3/4" per day. This in itself suggests the gate is fully open.
    
    For the past several months Kelley has clearly tried to maintain the lake around 40" below the top of the dam. Needless to say, Kelley doesn't communicate his dam management plans with me but it now appears that he has begun drawing down the lake in earnest in preparation for freeze up. I wonder how low he'll take it down?

• 17 October 2012:
  • The letter to the editor I wrote made it into the paper today, on page 13. Here's a copy I scanned from the paper and if you're bandwidth challenged, here's a much smaller PDF. I'm sure it will accomplish nothing but it felt good writing it and it can't hurt to let Ms. Auciello know that I expect more of her than she's been delivering.

• 15 October 2012:
  • I've written a letter to the editor of the Lincoln County News complaining of their biased, one-sided reporting. This ought to go over well :) I'll post it here on Wednesday.

• 14 October 2012:
  • The short wild rice (Zizania palustris angustifolia) is ripe- past ripe by now actually and it has been attracting wildlife and waterfowl like it's going out of style- as in deed it is: the season is rather short. However, because the water is so low, most of the meadow is high and dry with the result that the rice crop is rather limited this year, as is the waterfowl habitat. I "harvested" a small handful a few weeks ago and took a picture of it- it isn't the greatest photo but it has gone in the Fall 2012 album just the same. The grains themselves are about 1/2" long.
     
  • I speculated this morning that perhaps the gate has been opened more when I noticed the lake had fallen 0.6" over the last 24 hours. I just got back from running some errands and can confirm that the dam's gate has been opened further, likely sometime yesterday morning. From the looks it is perhaps 2/3 open now which is consistent with the lake level drop. Also noticed while I was out that there are some new signs over by the dam. I'll post pictures later.
     
  • Having had a chance this morning to review the latest Lincoln County News article, I have to wonder what ever happened to fair and balanced reporting. This is the second article written by Shlomit Auciello that is one-sided in its coverage to the point of being downright biased (the first was the article about Paul Kelley not wanting to fix the dam that appeared in the paper on August 30th). Both have failed to include statements from representatives of the Petitioners or the Clary Lake Association. This is in marked contrast to her first article about the petition which appeared in the paper on 04 July where she did considerable research including interviews with both myself and Paul Kelley.
    
    It isn't like Ms. Auciello didn't have material to work with or opportunity to solicit at least a token statement from me or the Association: Shlomit Auciello is on the Service List so she receives ALL correspondence sent to or received from Heather Parent, the Presiding Officer in these proceedings including the PPM motion to dismiss, posted on 02 October 2012; my first response posted on 05 October; the PPM combined response/objection posted on 09 October. Ms. Auciello had access to all these submissions; only my last response was posted too late for her to review before her article went to print. And yet her article is based entirely on the initial PPM Motion to Dismiss.
    
    In my opinion this level of reporting is unconscionable and demands a letter to the editor.

• 13 October 2012:
  • Here's that article in this weeks Lincoln County News: Attorney urges dismissal of Clary Lake level petition in PDF format, or as a JPG if you want.
     
  • I just got around to looking at this week's Lincoln County News and see that Shlomit Auciello has written another article "Attorney Urges Dismissal of Clary Lake Level Petition." It appears to be just a summary of PPM's initial Motion to Dismiss the Petition. It's not available online, at least not yet. I'll scan it and post it when I get a chance.
     
  • I went down yesterday afternoon to bail my boat out and it was gone! At first I thought it had been stolen but when I was on my way up to the house to call the cops I looked across the lake and saw a red spot over by the bog. Got my binoculars out and sure enough, there was my boat. After the last big rain a few days ago, the lake came up enough to float my boat off it's dry dock and it was off on a walk about... or a float about I guess.
    
    Well there was a strong Northwest wind yesterday afternoon and there were whitecaps on the lake but my boat was nestled up against the floating bog over near where the loons normally nest, just sitting there. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for a while I tried to find a way over there. Fortunately Jack Holland still has his boat in the water and he was able to give me a lift over to get it. Bailed it out, drove it home, dragged it up on it's berth, and tied it to a tree. Should have done that before. The whole episode from panic discovery to fortunate recovery only took about an hour and a half. Never a dull moment around here it seems.
     
  • It got down to 29° F at my house last night- our first frost this fall.

• 11 October 2012:
  • I've submitted the Petitioners' Response to the Respondents' Combined Response/Objection (Corrected) dated 10-09-12. I'd like to think we'll be getting a ruling from the Presiding Officer on all this real soon now.

• 10 October 2012:
  • PPM counsel has distributed a corrected copy of their Combined Response and Objection to Petitioners' response and motion along with a cover letter explaining the changes. I'm preparing a response.

• 09 October 2012:
  • I received tonight a Combined Response and Objection to Petitioners' response and motion. Something like this was expected. I await the Department ruling.

• 08 October 2012:
  • David Hodsdon sent me a chart showing secchi disk readings on Clary Lake from 1975 up to 03 October 2012 representing hundreds of measurements. This is an incredibly valuable store of data. Secchi disk readings are a way of measuring transparency (turbidity) of lake water. A few things are readily apparent from the chart:
    
    1) Each blue diamond represents a depth measurement. The deeper you can see the secchi disk, the better. The left hand scale measures the depth in feet;
    
    2) The closer a blue diamond is to the top of the chart, the less turbidity (better). Conversely, the closer a blue diamond is to the bottom of the chart, the more turbidity (worse).
    
    3) Generally you'll see better readings in the spring and fall, worse readings in the summer. Readings below 2 meters (6.6') typically mean there's an algae problem such as has in occurred late summer/early fall for the past few years.
    
    3) The trend over the years is toward poorer water clarity. The red and green trend lines show the general trend of measurements. We'd like to see these lines flat (no change) or rising slightly (improving conditions). However, the trend lines are going in the other direction. The 3rd order polynomial trend line suggests marked deterioration over the last 3-4 years.

• 07 October 2012:
  • David Hodsdon reports that the last secchi disk reading (a measure of transparency) was 3.5 meters which is pretty good compared to what it was back in August when the algal bloom hit (< 2 meters). Some of you may have noticed the green stuff floating on the surface the past few days. That is dead blue-green algae. I'd guess that with the increasing rain and cooler temperatures that the worst of the algae bloom is over for this year.
     
  • This news page has gotten quite large and slow to load (and edit) so I've decided to split off the First Half of 2012 into a separate file. This page you're looking at goes back to the 1st of August. If you want to go back further, you'll find a link above and another at the bottom of this page. One of these days, perhaps this winter I'll implement a monthly archive facility but it's low on my list of priorities just now :)
     
  • I've had some time to catch my breath after the flurry of activity last week and I wanted to comment a bit on the PPM motion to dismiss the petition. That it was an attempt to confuse, distract, and delay is obvious- I don't think even they believe the petition is going to get dismissed. What else they might have expected to accomplish with this maneuver I can only guess; certainly accusing the DEP of trespassing hasn't gained them any ground. More interesting to me is one particular statement in that letter that is quite telling and suggests that PPM and their counsel are not entirely on top of this situation:
    
    “The central substantive issue in this case is the water level the DEP should set."
    
    Sorry. This petition isn't about “setting a water level". It is about establishing a water level regime, a plan for how water levels should vary and be managed throughout the year so as to best protect the lake's resources. Anyone who expects DEP to issue a water level order specifying a single static water level to be maintained throughout the year is misinformed and guilty of wishful thinking. The Clary Lake Association certainly doesn't believe that will happen, neither do I. Apparently PPM hopes it will. Anyone unclear about this should spend some time reading real water level orders issued by the Department and review the testimony of respresentatives from the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife about how they manage their own Wildlife Management Areas that contain a water control structure.
    
    That PPM is upset over the Department conducting a bathymetric survey so they can redo their minimum flows recommendation serves to illustrate how little PPM understands the water level petition process and exactly what the Department will consider when drafting a water level order: the Department's mandate is to establish “a water level regime and, if applicable, minimum flow requirements” for Clary Lake. Recommendations from the the Division of Environmental Assessment will be used to establish the second part of that mandate: the minimum flows for Clary Lake. What PPM should be worried about is what the Department will come up with for the first part: the water level regime itself.
    
    One would think that PPM would be as interested as anyone in having the Department use the best available evidence in their decision making process, rather than relying on data that was clearly demonstrated at the hearing as being based on a faulty model of Clary Lake's shape and characteristics. That PPM rejects our assertion that the study is flawed, believing that a maximum annual fluctuation of 2.7' is somehow more desirable for them personally than say, a value of 2.0 shows they a) don't understand the real purpose of minimum flows or the maximum annual fluctuation, and b) how and when they are applied in the real world. I've explained this in detail on this web site but clearly they still don't get it. They apparently think there's a chance the Department will establish a water level of 2.7' below the top of the dam so they won't have to fix it. That just isn't going to happen. The Department would have to throw out every bit of testimony they received at the hearing to come to that conclusion. I repeat: that isn't going to happen.
    
    PPM would appear to have forgotten the purpose of a water level petition and perhaps are taking this all too personally; these proceedings are all about protecting and preserving valuable and sensitive State resources- wetlands, and wildlife, and the public's access to and use and enjoyment of those resources, now and into the future. There is nothing in the Water Level Law about establishing water levels that benefit one particular party over another party so there's no taking sides here. As you will recall, the Water Level Law restricts testimony at public hearings to a rather short list of topics, A through H, and not one of those topics asks about the water level necessary to protect the interests of a dam owner; not one of those topics asks about the water level necessary to protect the interests of a lake association. This isn't about us. It's about the lake.
    
    So it is unfortunate but perhaps understandable that PPM has aligned themselves on the opposite side of this issue from the petitioners and the Association and equally understandable that they would feel the Department is biased against them. though I personally feel the Department has shown great equanimity in dealing with all the parties. My only interest, personally, as petition spokesperson, and as an Association member, is having the Department act quickly to protect the lake, its water quality, its wetlands, and its wildlife.

• 05 October 2012:
  • I have just submitted my Response to the PPM Motion to Dismiss the Petition. Furthermore I have submitted my own Petitioners' Motion to supplement the record with additional evidence along with 14 Additional Exhibits. No reason why Pleasant Pond Mill and Aquafortis Associates should have all the fun :) For now I've just stuck all the new exhibits in a directory which you're welcome to browse. I may or may not get around to creating a web page to present the stuff. Probably not. I've still got the findings of fact to finish.
    
    Our response to the motion pretty much sums up what I think of their allegations of impropriety, ex-parte communications, and bias, and their motion to dismiss. I'll probably have more to say about this in a while.
     
  • I've sent around Yet Another Email Update #18.

• 03 October 2012:
  • I'm preparing a response to the PPM motion to dismiss the petition, I'll post it after I've submitted it along with any other responses to the motion that come my way. They're due in by 9am this Friday. Submission of the findings of fact briefs has been been postponed temporarily since the Presiding Officer apparently never set a submission date. I'll post those too as soon as they're submitted. Stay tuned. And don't worry, the petition isn't going to get dismissed.

• 02 October 2012:
  • Anthony Buxton on behalf of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC has sent a letter to the Presiding Officer with a motion to dismiss. I've only posted the letter, under Department Communications; the communication included a half dozen pictures that are already on the web site (I may post them later). I will be interested to hear what the Presiding Officer has to say about this. Stay tuned.
     
  • I don't know if anyone else reading this is as obsessed with aerial photographs as I am but for those of you who appreciate a good birds-eye-view, I've found another great one: it a National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial photograph dated 28 July 2011 which I downloaded from the USGS National Map Viewer web site. Warning: it's large- 6.24 megabytes large, and it's a PDF file, not an image file. You'll want to rotate it 90° and zoom in to get the full effect- you can zoom in 400% at least without undue loss of image resolution. It started life as an 87 megabyte .TIFF file. It is actually a fully rectified orthoimage which means it's been corrected for distortions resulting from differences in elevation, etc. It is a very high-tech picture. And it's free. I've linked to it over on the Pictures page.
     
  • I've concluded from water level measurements that the dam's gate is about 1/3 open and as such is draining about 1/4" of water out of the lake each day. Why Paul Kelley thinks he needs to draw off water with the lake down 40", I don't know. It's probably getting too close to the hole in the dam for his comfort. Why doesn't he just go stuff a pillow in the hole?

• 01 October 2012:
  • I was over chatting with Albert Boynton this afternoon and a bald eagle flew over the mill building, real low, heading for the Sheepscot river. Albert said they have a nest down on the river, which probably explains why I haven't seen a nest in the meadow this year. Likely they've abandoned their traditional nesting area for one with more promise. If anyone has seen a bald eagle nest on or around Clary Lake lately, send me an email and let me know would you?
     
  • It's the first of the month, it must be Chart day on the web site :)
     
  • Here's the September 2012 water level chart. What is so surprising about the chart is how flat the water level line is. September rainfall total was 4.62" and the dam's gate was only open for 2 days early in the month, and partially opened again just 2 days ago. Otherwise it was closed for 23 consecutive days. Still, the water level is essentially a flat line. It reached a high of -41.16" on the 5th and a low of -43.44" on the 18th for a total range of only 2.28" for the whole month. Absolutely amazing. Of course, the reason for the stable water level has nothing to do with Paul Kelley's management skills, it has everything to do with his comfort zone: he's happy with the lake at this level.
    
    As I have discussed before, it is all about with the fact that at 40" or so below the top of the dam, rain and runoff added to the lake doesn't raise the level as much as it increases the surface area. This is because there's several hundred acres of meadow around the lake that is only a few inches higher than the lake surface. When water enters the lake, it just spreads out, not up. This water level chart is incontrovertible proof of this fact.
    
    Imagine pouring a glass of water with 6" of water in it and a surface area of perhaps 6 square inches into a 12" frying pan. You don't end up with 6" of water in the frying pan. You might have a quarter of an inch of water in the pan, and a lot more surface area.
     
  • Our intrepid volunteer water quality monitor David Hodsdon just received the report for the total phosphorus sample taken on 19 September. He sent me the following chart showing Total Phosphorus in Clary lake going back to 1975. He says the values over 0.03 should probably be ignored. The trend line is a 3rd order polynomial fit to the data. You can click on the graph to see a bigger version.

• 29 September 2012:
  • It appears the dam's gate is between 1/3 and 1/2 way open. Not sure when this occurred, with the rain and windy weather we've had the past few days I've not been keeping too close an eye on the water level. Still, I think I'd have noticed a change in level resulting from even a partially open gate. I'm guessing it was opened sometime this morning.

• 28 September 2012:
  • A quick check of the web server logs show that the hearing transcript has been downloaded about 30 times. I hope everyone else is having as much fun reading it as I am!

• 27 September 2012:
  • The President of the Branch Pond Association Michael Wozniak informs me that the Branch Pond water level petition is likely on-hold until next year despite DEP having intended to hold a hearing this fall. This delay is even more regrettable since the petition was put on hold for 3 years and it is now close to 4 years since it was originally filed. Brandon Kulik, fisheries biologist with Kleinschmidt Associates and Branch Pond home owner will be heading up the petition effort. The Clary Lake Association will help them out in any way we can as we're all in this watershed together.

• 26 September 2012:
  • There is a notice in today's Lincoln County News: Clary Lake Hearing Transcript Available. In the interest of being thorough, I've scanned and posted it.

• 25 September 2012:
  • I have finally received the Transcript of the August 17th Public Hearing. My Proposed Findings of Fact have to be submitted by 5pm Thursday October 4th. I expected a bigger file- it's only 883K. I'll have more to say about this after I'm done reading. Enjoy!

• 24 September 2012:
  • I got an email from Beth Callahan today saying that she's spoken to the reporting service that is preparing the transcript of the hearing and that it is almost done. They're doing the final proof reading and corrections. It's over 200 pages. It will be distributed "soon" and I can't wait.
     
  • Anyone else see that spectacular rainbow over the lake this afternoon? It was stunning, by far the most intensely brilliant rainbow I've ever seen. What was especially remarkable was the quality of the light "inside" the rainbow. Truly amazing. Wish I had a wide angle lens. The end I could see was sitting smack dab on Art Enos's house :)

• 21 September 2012:
  • DEP is performing a bathymetric survey of Clary lake. If you've noticed a small Boston Whaler crisscrossing the lake today, that's them. I've uploaded a few pictures to the Fall 2012 album. The final product of a bathymetric survey is a contour map of the lake or more accurately, a contour map of the bottom of the lake. Think of it as a depth map. To perform the survey they're using a GPS receiver coupled with a depth sounder. They'll use the equipment to measure the water depth and the corresponding latitude and longitude as they crisscross the lake, running a series of roughly parallel lines called "transects". Most of you are familiar with the State's depth map that has been around for years. It's not very accurate and includes only about 70 data points (depths) roughly located along 9 transects across the lake proper. This new survey will be much more accurate and will include thousands of data points.
    
    The purpose of this survey is to provide for the accurate determination of lake surface areas and lake volumes corresponding to different water levels. This data will then be used to calculate the maximum annual fluctuation and minimum flows for Clary lake i.e., the maximum amount that the lake can be drawn down at any time during year and, if the lake is drawn down, then the required minimum flows that have to be released from the lake to maintain downstream aquatic flora and fauna. This requires a bit more explanation:
    
    There is no requirement that the dam owner ever let more water OUT of the lake than there is ENTERING the lake. If there's 100 cubic feet per second coming into the lake, the assumption is there is also going to be 100 cubic feet per second leaving the lake. If there is nothing entering the lake, there's nothing going out either. That's OK. However, if the dam owner chooses to draw down the lake then a) they can only draw it down an amount less than or equal to the maximum annual fluctuation and b) having done so, the dam owner MUST then continue release the amount of water specified as the minimum flows for the period corresponding to the time of year REGARDLESS of whether there is less that the minimum flow entering the lake i.e., if the dam owner uses their discretionary authority to draw down the lake, they cannot just shut the dam's gate and dry up the stream below the dam. In other words, Mother Nature can dry up the outlet stream. Man cannot.
    
    If you will recall, the DEP's division of Environmental Assessment drafted a minimum flows recommendation for Clary Lake last spring and came up with a maximum annual fluctuation of 2.7'. That recommendation was based upon a cone-shaped model of the lake, a fact that David Hodsdon was able to show. We cast enough doubt on the validity of their model that the DEP decided the best solution was to bite the bullet and order up a full-blown bathymetric survey of the lake. Unfortunately, there are 300 acres of drained wetland at the northwest end of the lake and about 11 acres on the southeast end by Route 126 that they were unable to survey. I am interested in seeing how they decide to model these areas.
    
    Single-receiver GPS observations do not generate accurate elevations so the GPS wasn't used to determine the elevation of the surface of the lake, it was only used to locate the individual depth measurements. The depth measurements themselves obviously are all made relative to the existing lake surface which is well below the top of the dam. In order to adjust the depth data to a full lake, they needed to know how far below the top of the dam the current surface of the lake is. To this end, the last thing they did before heading back to Augusta was to stop at the dam to make that measurement; they'll use that figure to adjust their depth measurements. The final depth map will show water depths relative to the top of the dam.
    
    Hopefully we'll have at least a preliminary map to look at by the end of next week.

• 19 September 2012
  • Correction: David Hodsdon informs me that peak membership was actually reached back when Art Enos was President back in 1999 when there were 72 Clary Lake Association members; there were 71 members in 2000. So my previous statement that the current total of 71 members is "the most we've ever had" was, well, wrong. I also did a little research and found that there are about 39 individual properties in Whitefield and about 53 individual properties in Jefferson for a total of about 92 properties. Since the vast majority of our members are actual littoral property owners and 1 membership = 1 property, it appears we currently have about 75% of all Clary Lake shore owners as members of the Association- a solid majority. Surely we can pick up a few more :)
     
  • The storm has dropped approximately 1.0" to 1.3" of rain depending on who you ask, and the lake so far has risen only 1.2". While it is still early for totals it does appear that the runoff multiplier when the lake is this far below the top of the dam is about what I estimated previously between 1x and 1.5x. Because there is more runoff into the northwest end of the lake, I expect the water level at the dam has risen more like 3" to 4" and is probably sitting somewhere between 39" and 40" below the top of the dam, a couple of inches higher than here at the lake. The dam's gate is still closed.
     
• 18 September 2012:
  • Linda Gallion informs me that Clary Lake Association membership is up to 71 members! I'm pretty sure this is the most members we've ever had, by a long shot. Many thanks to those of you who have chosen to come on board at this crucial time, your support is very important.
     
  • Rain is slated to start around here late this afternoon or early evening, likely heaviest in the wee hours and tapering off tomorrow morning. The NOAA forecast is still for about 1.3" of rain- a good amount, but nothing to get excited about. The gate is still closed despite the lake level having fallen 0.03' in the last 24 hours- perhaps Paul Kelley is going to accept my challenge to leave the gate closed for this rain event.

• 17 September 2012:
  • Heavy soaking rains are forecast for this coming Tuesday. The  NOAA forecast is for between 1" and 1.4" of rain overnight. Recall however from previous rain events when the lake level was this far below the top of the dam, rainfall and runoff causes the lake's surface area to increase more than it causes the lake's water level to rise. In addition, because the ground so dry, runoff will be less than normal. All this combines to suggest that the rainfall multiplier, rather than being the usual 3x to 4x, is likely to be only 1x to 1.5x at the very most. This in turn suggests the lake should only rise 2" to perhaps 2.25" from the coming rain, leaving the lake still more than 40" below the top of the dam. Because 2/3 of the lake's watershed area drains into the meadow at the northwest end of the lake, I would expect the actual water level at the dam to top out several inches higher than that, but still well below the hole in the dam.
    
    I challenge Paul Kelley to leave the gate closed for this rain event.

• 15 September 2012:
  • It's been 4 weeks since the August 17th public hearing and the DEP has still not received the hearing transcript. I got an email last week from Beth Callahan clarifying that we'll have 7 days from the date the transcript is distributed to us to submit our findings of fact. I imagine the court reporter is having a hard time reconciling her record with the tape recording, what with people talking at the same time, people mumbling, etc. You'd think this would be routine. The net effect of this delay is to drag this whole process out well into the fall.

• 13 September 2012:
  • Whoa! I owe Lincoln County News an apology, my letter to the editor WAS in the paper, in its entirety, on page 13. How did I miss that? Many thanks to the person (who shall remain nameless) for bringing it to my attention. I know I said I didn't care when I thought it hadn't made it into the paper, but in fact I really did care. The general reading public that has been following this water level petition issue for months now really deserved to hear the other side of the story.
    
    I've scanned a copy and posted it here: Really Mr. Kelley?
     
  • I've added a new photo album: Fall 2012 with more pictures from around Clary lake documenting the current water level crisis. At the invitation of Jane Chase, my wife and I spent some time yesterday afternoon wandering around the woods road on her property that skirts the meadow area. This provided us with intimate access to Clary Meadow and Clark's Meadow Brook. It was at the same time beautiful and sad given there isn't any water out there, and darn little wildlife. With the lake down 42", the vast wading bird habitat was high and dry. There should have been clouds of waterfowl wheeling through the sky. Instead, there was the occasional small flock of ducks passing through from the lake on their way... somewhere else.

• 12 September 2012:
  • I attended the Whitefield Selectmen's board meeting last night to discuss dam ownership issues.. There is an article in this week's Lincoln County News about the meeting: "Whitefield selectmen sign tax commitment, discuss Clary Lake Dam." Obviously nothing was decided.
     
  • Still no word on the transcript of the public hearing, nor any explanation of why the hold up. We're into our 4th week of waiting. This will delay the findings of fact and push off even further the DEP decision on this matter.
     
  • Well, my letter to the editor of the Lincoln County News didn't make it into the paper 2 weeks in a row. Perhaps they felt it was too long or maybe they just didn't want to get in the middle of this situation. I don't know. I would have expected to have been told why they weren't going to print it. Now, I guess I don't care: first they run a one-sided story fraught with errors on a contentious issue of real public interest, and then fail (twice) to print my response. While the public deserves a valid perspective on this issue, I will not try a third time- I've got better things to be doing. Here is the full text of what didn't appear in the paper:

    10 September 2012 Letter to the editor submitted to the Lincoln County News (but not printed!)

    Setting the Dam Record Straight

    In an article that appeared 2 weeks ago entitled “Whitefield Dam Owner Says Repairs Are Not His Responsibility”, Paul Kelley, managing partner of the company which owns the Clary lake dam announced that he had no plans to repair the dam and that it “should be repaired by those who benefit from it.” As Spokesperson for the people pursuing a resolution of the Clary lake water level crisis through petition to the Department of Environmental Protection, and because I believe Mr. Kelley is misrepresenting the facts, I felt it appropriate that I respond publicly to him on this matter. To arrive at a meaningful consensus, I sought opinions from Whitefield Selectman Steve McCormick, Clary Lake Association President Ellis Percy, and a number of petitioners. We all agree: it's his dam and it's his problem. I have a couple of other comments.

    First, when asking people for money to solve what is essentially your problem, it's customary to say “please” and while we are not opposed in principle to helping Mr. Kelley repair the dam, his behavior around this issue from the very start leaves us wary, and disinclined to get involved.

    Second, he states that his company “does not benefit” from owning a repaired dam while only a few weeks ago, at the public hearing held by the DEP to hear evidence on the petition, Mr. Kelley testified that he believed his downstream property was at great risk from dam failure and that the reason he has drawn down the lake so much is because the dam is in such bad shape. He also testified that last fall he contacted DEP about his plans to repair the dam and he “dewatered the impoundment” in anticipation of making those repairs, then failed to make them. What's going on? Clearly, Mr. Kelley stands to benefit greatly from having the dam repaired and properly maintained, he just doesn't want to pay for it. Who is he trying to kid?

    Third, we happen to believe that the dam should not just be repaired by those who benefit from it, but it should be owned by them as well. Mr. Kelley has stated he is unwilling to repair and maintain a structure to benefit others. Perhaps Mr. Kelley can then understand our reticence at putting our money into property we don't own or control.

    The article concludes with the statement that unless the Town of Whitefield comes up with a “financially viable” plan he is not going to “be involved in any way.” Apparently not only does he think it is the Clary Lake shore owners' responsibility to fix his dam but that it is the town of Whitefield's responsibility to provide him with a “financially viable” plan to develop his property. Huh?

    This was the end of my original letter but Mr. Kelley felt obliged to correct various errors in the original article; my letter was held out, to give me a chance to make any needed changes. My letter stands, but I do have some additional comments about statements made by Mr. Kelley in his 5 September 2012 editorial “Responding and correcting certain errors.”

    Mr. Kelley states “The [URS] study clearly showed that excessive flows from the Clary Lake Dam were and are damaging the historic Clary Mill building. The report was submitted into evidence to show that the recent water level process undertaken by DEP has completely failed to take this serious matter into account.”

    First, I would submit that Clary Lake is discharging the same amount of water now as it always has so I don't know where he is getting “excessive flows” from, or what he suggests should be done about them. Order less rain perhaps? What has changed is that his mill pond and building foundation are in poor condition and the report clearly shows this is Mr. Kelley's fault: his efforts spent “stabilizing the structures” did not include acting on the single most important recommendation in the URS report, that of removing the concrete wall blocking the principle outlet weir in the mill pond dam. From the URS report, page 4: “The lack of an adequate principle outlet is causing relatively rapid deterioration of the dam.” Gee. Completing this simple task would have restored the weir's original function of handling overflow water. If Mr. Kelley is so concerned about preserving the mill pond dam and mill building, why has he not taken this simple but so important step?

    Mr. Kelley next states “Our plan to rehab the mill so that it would look the way it did 115 years ago when it was originally built, with continued economic purpose for generations to come, was not approved by the Town of Whitefield.”

    This sounds altruistic but Mr. Kelley's initial proposal to the Whitefield Planning Board was for a number of condominium units in the “historic” mill building. I suppose this is what he means by “continued economic purpose for generations to come” but I'd call it a for-profit residential development project, plain and simple, and it was rejected by the planning board on the basis that he lacked a) sufficient develop-able area, b) sufficient septic system capacity and c) sufficient parking.

    Mr. Kelly then states “Our company therefore transferred the mill and associated land and property to AquaFortis Associates LLC in 2010. The Clary Lake Dam remains our company's only property in Whitefield, and despite our efforts, no party has emerged who seems able to take over the responsibility and cost of owning it.”

    It sure sounds like Mr. Kelley, his development plans foiled, unloaded the problem mill property on another unsuspecting company and is now stuck owning the Clary lake dam which is falling apart and serves him absolutely no useful purpose. Poor Mr. Kelley! Well nothing could be further from the truth! A look at the real estate transfer tax form he filed with the Whitefield Town Office after the transfer of property to AquaFortis in 2010 shows the transfer was exempt from tax because it represented a “Conveyance from one LLC to another with same principals.” In other words, he transferred it to himself. Mr. Kelley who refers to himself only as a “representative” of AquaFortis Associates LLC is in fact the managing partner of that company and it's time for him to stop this charade. Nobody is amused.

    The latter part of that last statement: “despite our efforts, no party has emerged who seems able to take over the responsibility and cost of owning it” couldn't be further from the truth. The Clary Lake Association, in existence since the early 1960s and incorporated as a 501(c)3 corporation since 1995, has for years expressed interest in owning the Clary Lake dam. This past summer they made an offer on the dam that was rejected. Mr. Kelley implies with his statement that the Association is not a responsible party capable of owning the dam, a belief I find both disingenuous and laughable given his own pathetic history of dam ownership: In the 6 years he has owned the dam he has done absolutely nothing to repair or maintain it, instead letting it deteriorate to the point where it is no longer safe. For crying out loud, there is a tree growing out of it! Really Mr. Kelley? The Clary Lake Association isn't responsible enough to own the dam?

    I welcome Mr. Kelley's response.

    Respectfully,

    George Fergusson, petition spokesperson
    Whitefield Maine

• 10 September 2012:
  • I've written a Letter to the Editor in response to the article in the Lincoln County News Whitefield Dam Owner Says Repairs Are Not His Responsibility and to Paul Kelley's letter to the editor. The first part of the letter is largely unchanged from what I posted back on 03 September but I added to it after reading the letter Kelley correcting errors in the original article. It ended up being long but I haven't heard back from the Editor that it's too long so I assume it will be in the paper this coming Wednesday.
     
• 07 September 2012:
  • I've had a chance to ponder the effect of the last rain storm. We're at that strange water level where an inch of rain causes the lake's surface area to increase more than it causes the water level to rise. This is counter intuitive, but it makes sense if you think about it: normally with a more or less "full" lake we'd expect an inch of rain to bring the lake up 3"-4" but with the lake down 40"+ an inch of rain is only likely to bring the lake up 1/2" to 3/4" because as the lake rises, the water spreads out to cover more ground. Remember, there are 300 acres of drained wetland around the lake, most of it up in the northwest meadow.
    
    If you don't believe it, consider the facts: we received 1.2" of rain in that last storm and the dam was open for 2 days during which time about 1.5" of water drained out of the lake (3/4" per day x 2). All in all the lake rose only a total of 0.12" and is now down 0.6" lower than it was before the storm. You do the math. If the lake were near full, 1.2" of rain would have brought the lake up 3.6" and opening the gate for 2 days would have drawn it down 1.5" so we really should have seen a net increase in water level of about 2". Instead, the lake fell over 1/2" in that same period. So the rainfall multiplier is an elusive value.....

• 06 September 2012:
  • The dam is now closed. It was open for 2 days. Hardly seems worth it.
     
• 05 September 2012:
  • I got nice call this afternoon from Sherwood Olin, Editor of the Lincoln County News to explain why my Letter to the Editor did not make it into this week's paper. It turns out Paul Kelley wished to correct some errors in the article and the editor decided to give him a chance to do that before running my letter to the editor. This made perfect sense to me since there was every chance that the items I had written about were the very items that Paul Kelley felt needed correcting. So Paul Kelley's letter with corrections appeared in today's payer. Sherwood encouraged me to send my letter in again, amended if necessary, next week.
    
    As it turns out, the items Kelley felt needed correcting were the very same items I highlighted as errors back on 30 August 2012 (see below) when the article first appeared: confusion over which dam was being talked about, timing of purchases, etc. I overlooked those errors when I wrote my letter so it needs no modification. However, I will be adding a few paragraphs to address some additional statements Kelley has made that I take particular exception to.
    
    I've scanned Paul Kelley's letter to the editor for your reading pleasure as it has not appeared on line yet. Look for my letter to the editor next week.
     
• We've only received 1.10" as of 6:30 this morning and the rain event is already petering out. NOAA is now predicting only another 1/10th of an inch or rain today, way less than they were predicting even last night. I was hoping for more.

• 04 September 2012:
  • The dam's gate is open. The lake hasn't fallen appreciably yet so I'd guess it was opened sometime this afternoon, in anticipation of the heavy rainfall. Ironically, with the lake down this low, there is a greater increase in lake area than there is in lake depth when it rains...  but they can't be too careful, can they.

• 03 September 2012:
  • I've been looking at the NOAA weather forecast for the next couple of 3 days and it looks like the remnants of Hurricane Isaac are going to dump a lot of rain on us, starting sometime Tuesday afternoon/evening and continuing through Wednesday night, tapering off early Thursday morning. Rainfall total could be somewhere between 2" and 4".
     
  • I have written the following Letter to the Editor and sent it off to the Lincoln County News. I assume it will make it into this week's paper. You saw it here first.

    In an article in last week's paper entitled “Whitefield Dam Owner Says Repairs Are Not His Responsibility”, Paul Kelley, managing partner of
    the company which owns the Clary lake dam announced that he had no plans to repair the dam and that it “should be repaired by those who
    benefit from it.” As the Spokesperson for the people that have been pursuing a resolution of the Clary lake water level crisis through
    petition to the State Department of Environmental Protection, I felt it appropriate that I respond publicly to Mr. Kelley on this question.
    In order to arrive at a meaningful consensus, I sought opinions from a number of people including Whitefield Selectman Steve McCormick, Clary
    Lake Association President Ellis Percy, and a number of petitioners. We all agree: it's his dam and it's his problem.
    
    I have a couple of other comments. First, when one is asking other people for money to solve what is essentially your problem, it's
    customary to say “please” and while we are not opposed in principle to helping Mr. Kelley repair the dam, his behavior around this issue from
    the very start leaves us wary, and disinclined to get involved.
    
    Second, he states that his company “does not benefit” from either repairing the dam or having the dam repaired while only a few weeks
    ago, at the public hearing held by the DEP to hear evidence on the petition, Mr. Kelley testified that he believed his downstream
    property was at great risk from dam failure and that is the reason he has drawn down the lake. He also testified that last fall he contacted
    DEP about his own plans to repair the dam. Clearly, Mr. Kelley stands to benefit greatly from having the dam repaired and properly
    maintained. He just doesn't want to pay for it. Who is he trying to kid?
    
    Third, we happen to believe that the dam should not just be repaired by those who benefit from it, but owned by them as well. Mr. Kelley's
    has stated he is unwillingness to repair and maintain a structure to benefit others. Perhaps Mr. Kelley can then understand our reticence
    at putting our money into property we don't own or control. The article concludes with the statement that unless the town of
    Whitefield comes up with a “financially viable” plan he is not going to “be involved in any way” so not only does he think it is the Clary
    lake shore owner's responsibility to fix his dam but that it is the town of Whitefield's responsibility to provide him with a “financially
    viable” plan to develop his property. All I can say is good luck with that.
    
    Respectfully,
    
    George Fergusson, petition spokesperson
    Whitefield Maine

  • A reminder that it is open season on Canada Geese, a fact I was reminded of when I was napping in my hammock Saturday afternoon to be awoken by gunfire over in the swamp right next door. To say I was startled does not quite convey my reaction. Yesterday evening I fished a goose carcass out of the water from which the breast had been removed- and not all that skillfully I might add. That this was a waste of meat was bad enough but then throwing the body back in the lake to float around and rot was downright disgusting- whomever did it ought to be ashamed. I'm not opposed to hunting but that is just wrong. No, I didn't take any pictures.

• 01 September 2012:
  • I sent around yet another Petition Update Email #16 last night. In the last Lincoln County News article, Paul Kelley announced his intent to abdicated his dam owner responsibilities. I felt this position statement required an official response. To that end I polled a number of people for their opinions on the article including Ellis Percy, President of the Clary Lake Association, Clary Lake Association benefactor John Dickerson, and town of Whitefield Selectman Steve McCormick. Our consensus response: Sorry Paul, it's your dam, it's your problem :)
    
    I will be sending a letter to the editor.

• 31 August 2012:
  • Here's hoping everyone has a nice Labor Day weekend. Blue Moon tonight. See you on the lake.
     
  • I have a few more comments to make about this week's Lincoln County News article. I'll try not to repeat myself. First, it appears the reporter is confused about a few key points including which dam is being talked about, and who owned what property when:
    
    A 2003 report that was entered in evidence as part of the DEP's water level hearing for Clary Lake Dam Aug. 17 describes a structure in need of repair."
    
    It sounds like she is referring to the Clary lake dam but the 2003 report she is talking about is the URS report on the condition of the lower mill pond dam and mill building, not the Clary lake dam (they didn't get the upper dam until 2006). She starts out talking about the upper dam and transitions seamlessly to discussing the lower dam without making a distinction between the two. Anyone else confused by this?
    
    "At the time of the report, PPM owned the four parcels that include the upper and lower dams and the buildings associated with the mill. In 2012, all of the properties except the Clary Lake Dam were sold to the newly-formed Aquafortis."
    
    False. At the time of the report (2003), PPM only owned the land and buildings on the west side of Route 218. PPM didn't get the dam until 2006 and the properties were transferred to Aquafortis in the spring of 2010, not in 2012.
    
    It was designed to run a mill, not to create a lake for the enjoyment of homeowners and creation of tax revenue," Kelley said. "Unless somebody comes up with a proposal, at the town of Whitefield level, that would be financially viable, I don't anticipate that I would be involved in any way.
    
    This final sentence in the article is a great quote, it characterizes Kelley's approach to solving his problems: find someone else to pay to fix them! Is it any wonder he can't get anything done? Is Paul Kelley really suggesting that the town of Whitefield should come up with a "financially viable" proposal to fix his dam and that if they don't, nothing is going to get done? Does that sound like a threat?
    
    I might also add that "home owner enjoyment" and "tax revenue" are not among the allowable topics for testimony at a public water level hearing. Therefore, to suggest the Clary lake dam exists today solely for those reasons shows a stunningly obtuse perspective on what this petition is all about. Clary lake with its associated wetlands and wildlife is an incredibly valuable state resource that will be preserved and kept available for everyone in the state of Maine and the sooner Paul Kelley figures that out the better.
     
• 30 August 2012:
  • I've posted yet another Lincoln County News article by Shlomit Auciello: Whitefield Dam Owner Says Repairs Are Not His Responsibility. I'll have some comments in a while.
     
  • The article has a few factual errors: In 2003 when the URS report was prepared, Pleasant Pond Mill LLC did not own anything but the mill building and property on the westerly side of Route 218. They did not buy the dam until 2006. It is also misleading in that Kelley says that they implemented the repairs to the mill pond dam that the report recommended, "essentially undoing alterations" made by Chester Chase. This is not true: they failed to reopen the principle outlet weir which Chester Chase filled with cement.
     
  • The article also suggests that Paul Kelley feels that we, the Clary lake shore owners, should bear the whole cost of repairing and maintaining the dam. From the first line of the article: "The managing partner of Pleasant Pond Mill LLC (PPM), Paul Kelley, who also serves as representative for Aquafortis Associates LLC, said the dam should be repaired by those who benefit from it." What the water level booklet actually states is: "It seems only fair that those who directly benefit from a dam either buy or operate the dam themselves or share in the cost of its maintenance. However, the DEP cannot force this to happen."
    
    So I have a few observations. First, at the public hearing just 2 weeks ago, Paul Kelley said he would not make any repairs to the dam that were not in keeping with and done in conjunction with a whole-site historical restoration of the Henry Clary mill property, even though the dam itself is not part of the property listed on the National Historic Register. Now apparently he doesn't think he should have to pay for any repairs to the dam at all. Good luck with that Paul.
    
    Second, Paul Kelley is proud to point out that he contacted the DEP last fall to inquire about permitting required to repair damage the dam and red building supposedly sustained in Hurricane Irene. He was told that he did not need a permit to make the planned repairs. Paul proceeded to drain the lake. Now it is clear that Paul Kelley never intended to repair the dam at all. I suppose this should not come as a surprise: since buying the dam back in 2006, Paul Kelley has not spent a dime on repairs or maintenance.
    
    And now he wants us to fix his dam for him?
    
    There was a time when I would have considered contributing to the cost of repairing the dam, but that time has long passed. At this point, I am perfectly content letting this petition process play itself out to it's inevitable conclusion: a DEP enforceable lake level order. If Paul Kelley doesn't want to own the dam with a lake level order on it, he can sell it. It is that simple.
     
  • The article also fosters the illusion that while Paul Kelley is "the managing partner" of PPM, he is only a "representative" of Aquafortis Associates LLC. In fact we know that Paul Kelley is also the managing partner of Aquafortis. Paul Kelley is the man behind the curtain.
     
• 29 August 2012:
  • We're still waiting for the written transcript of the public hearing, I expect it will be out sometime this week. We'll then have 7 days to prepare and submit our findings of fact, which I've already started work on. Stay tuned.
     
  • We're poised to set a new record for visits to the web site this month. Since launching the site back in late March, we've served up over 25,000 pages with monthly traffic steadily increasing, with the exception of June which saw a small decline in traffic for some reason. Furthermore, with well in excess of 400 unique visitors a month, we have been attracting a whole lot more people than live on Clary lake. Not surprisingly, the most popular pages are the home page, this page (news page), the petition news page, and the water level chart, in that order.

• 28 August 2012:
  • We're getting some much needed rain this morning but I don't think it will amount to much and like the last rain event, the ground is so dry I expect runoff to be negligible.

• 26 August 2012:
  • Margaret and I were taking a turn around the lake Friday afternoon and spotted a large white bird sitting in a tree over on the floating bog. It turned out to be Great Egret (Ardea albus). They're considered threatened in some states (Connecticut) but apparently not here in Maine. That said, this is the first one I've ever seen anywhere, let alone here on Clary lake. There was a Great Blue Heron sitting in a tree a little to one side that I didn't even see until they both flew off as I approached. I managed to get a couple of not terribly good pictures of the bird sitting in a tree and flying, but since it was my first Great Egret, I am thrilled nonetheless. Great Egrets are about the size of a Great Blue Heron except  they're all white; they're distinguished from Snowy Egrets both by their size (they're much larger) and their black feet and yellow beak.
     
  • I was talking to Malcolm Burson yesterday, he said he and Eleanor paddled a ways down the channel Friday afternoon on the 17th, a day after the 3.7" rain storm and he reports that the stream was in deed flowing towards the lake, not towards the dam. If you'll recall, Paul Kelley claimed the lake rose 11" at the dam from that storm while I only saw a rise of 7.8" at the lake. I explained this discrepancy was the result of the disparate amount of watershed area that drains into Clary meadow via Clark's Meadow Brook and speculated that after a large rain event water would actually flow into the lake rather than in the normal direction, but now we have an eye witness report of this phenomena.

• 23 August 2012:
  • I've posted yet another Lincoln County News article by Shlomit Auciello: DEP Hears Evidence In Clary Lake Dam Dispute. I downloaded this from the paper's site and it doesn't have any photographs. I don't know if the paper paper has pictures or not, I haven't been to the store to get a copy. Yet. Commentary to follow.
    
    There are a couple of pictures but they don't really add anything to the article so I won't bother scanning it. Good article. A few errors, but nothing substantively wrong. Keep up the good work Shlomit!

• 21 August 2012:
  • The gate has been closed- the lake hasn't dropped appreciably today so it must have been closed sometime this morning.
     
  • This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but the DEP has posted the Clary Lake Water Level Petition in it's entirety including signatures and appendices on the DEP web site. What I did find interesting is that this is the ONLY petition under review at this time. I know there are others in the pipeline but I guess we're further along in the process than anyone else.
     
  • I have posted the State Dam Inspector's report on Clary lake dam that I entered into evidence at the public hearing.
     
  • Anthony Buxton has sent around a digital copy of the Whitefield  Dam Assessment conducted by the engineering firm URS that Pleasant Pond Mill LLC had done back in 2003, shortly after they purchased the mill building and property on the west side of Route 218. This is the report of which only the first page was included in Pleasant Pond Mill's exhibits. The whole report was requested; here it is. It is a large PDF file (~9.8 megabytes) which took me about 2 minutes to upload on my sluggish Fairpoint DSL connection, so if you're on a slow connection you might want to make other arrangements to look at it. I may extract and post a few pages of particular interest after I've gone through it.
    
    I won't be spending any more time on this Exibit. I did break out the 5 page Report Part of the document but it isn't significantly smaller than the whole document so I won't be posting it separately. The report states that the lower dam, mill pond, and mill building foundation were in "fair" condition in 2003:
    
    "With the exception of the issue of hydraulic controls, the dam is in fair condition. While the safety issues and long-term maintenance issues should be undertaken in the near future to limit further dam deterioration, these deficiencies are not seriously endangering the dam at this time."
    
    
    
    This report does not support Paul Kelley's assertions at the hearing that the structures are in near-failure mode. That said, it does not appear that Pleasant Pond Mill nor Aquafortis Associates (the current property owner) have performed any of the repairs and/or alterations or maintenance the report recommends, either to the dam or to the building foundation including removing the concrete from the principle outlet from the dam, which remains in place to this day. Therefor, if any of the structures have deteriorated in the 9 years since the report was completed it is because the owners have failed to take any of the action recommended in the report.
     
  • I will not be posting any additional Exhibits from the binder of exhibits Pleasant Pond Mill entered into evidence at the public hearing at this time as I don't find any of them relevant to the establishment of a water level for Clary lake. For example, Clary lake dam is categorized as LOW hazard so a document referring to the Maine Emergency Management Agency's difficulty in finding the time and personnel to adequately monitor HIGH and SIGNIFICANT hazard dams is not relevant. The few documents that I feel are relevant have already been put into evidence and/or been posted here by me such as the State Dam Inspector's report on Clary lake dam, and the Water Level Booklet.
     
  • I took a canoe up in the meadow yesterday afternoon and have posted a few pictures. At 40" below the top of the dam, the marsh area was drained a long time ago but for the most part, there is still a good deal of water in the channel proper and when you leave the lake and get a ways into the marsh, tall wild rice on either side of the channel makes it hard to see that the water doesn't extend very far on either side. Occasionally you can get a glimpse out over the meadow and then you see that as the stream meanders down to the dam, it is for the most part contained within its banks.
    
    There are places where the channel is almost grown in with wild rice and meadow grass but it is still easy enough to slide through in a canoe or kayak. Anything larger is out of the question. Clark's Meadow Brook where joins the main stream is almost impossible to spot, but knowing where it is I was able to get about 20' up it before backing out again. It is too shallow and weedy to make much progress. I jumped a Great Blue Heron on my way down the channel and at one point a small flock of geese wheeled overhead looking for a place to land. I had my camera ready and was able to get a picture of them- I've made a banner out of it (above). They didn't land in the marsh however, they ended up settling down out on the lake. 6 Black ducks also flew by which are probably the same 6 Blacks that my friend said he jumped last week. I guess there aren't a lot of waterfowl calling the marsh home this summer though I expect when the wild rice ripens this fall it will attract more migrating birds- there's a pretty good crop of short wild rice along the edges of the channel. Unfortunately, there won't be much water to accommodate them.
    
    I pulled in to check out the duck blind on the point at the confluence of streams but couldn't get close enough to dry ground to get out and stretch my legs. I did get a picture of the duck blind though, and another one (at right) looking north up Clark's Meadow Brook across the so-called wading bird habitat. Not a lot of wading going on up there right now. I continued down the channel a little further, as far as the abandoned beaver lodge before I turned the canoe around and headed towards home. I made a few casts on my way down and again on my way back, but I didn't catch anything. I guess I wasn't trying very hard. There was a fairly strong current. I'd say the marsh is holding its own but it could use another 3' of water. I've posted a few other pictures over in the Summer 2012 album. I hope you enjoy them.
     
  • My wife took a few pictures at the public hearing last Friday night. The lighting was great and she didn't want to use flash so they didn't come out really well but I thought I'd post a couple.
     

• 20 August 2012:
  • I have just posted a document to the site which some of you will find quite interesting- especially if you're one of the people who have wasted their time and  money because they were led to believe that Paul Kelley is only the Registered Agent of Aquafortis Associates LLC for the convenience of the owners, who wish to remain anonymous. Of course, nobody believed this but now we have proof that Paul Kelley has been misrepresenting the facts from the very start.
    
    Our intrepid attorney Bob Rubin obtained a copy of the Real Estate Transfer Tax Form via fax from the Whitefield Town Office that Paul Kelley filled out when he transferred the Mill building and other property (including the flowage rights and mill privilege) to Aquafortis Associates LLC. As you may know, when you sell property in the State of Maine, you have to pay transfer tax on it unless you qualify for one of a number of possible exemptions. Paul Kelley listed the transfer price as $0 and applied for an exemption giving the reason "Conveyance from one LLC to another with same principals/36 MRSA, Section 4641-C(19)." That particular exemption is for this paragraph of the law:
    
    19. Change in identity or form of ownership.  Any transfer of real property, whether accomplished by deed, conversion, merger, consolidation or otherwise, if it consists of a mere change in identity or form of ownership of an entity. This exemption is limited to those transfers when no change in beneficial ownership is made and may include transfers involving corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, trusts, estates, associations and other entities;
    
    So there you have it: Paul Kelley wouldn't enter into negotiations with the Clary Lake Association regarding the transfer of the dam without having us sign a Non-Disclosure-Agreement because he didn't trust us. Consider the following:
     
    • When Beth Callahan of the DEP talked with Paul Kelley in late Marsh about the petition and asked him about Aquafortis Associates interest in the property, he told her he couldn't speak for Aquafortis and she needed to send them a letter, and he supplied her with their Whitefield PO Box address; to that end, Beth Callahan spent her valuable time drafting a letter to Aquafortis Associates requesting information material to their involvement in these proceedings.
       
    • Subsequently, on May 1st, 2012, DEP received a response from Aquafortis Associates in the form of a long and involved letter from Aquafortis Associates, signed "Aquafortis Associates" which referred to Paul Kelley numerous times in the 3rd person.
       
    • When the Clary Lake Association met with Paul Kelley, Art Enos, and others back in May to discuss the purchase of the dam, Paul said that he couldn't talk about the land on the east side of the road because Aquafortis Associates owned it, and the Association would have to send a letter to them. Which we did, using a Whitefield PO Box address he supplied. We sent it Registered, requiring  a signature. Paul retrieved it and signed the receipt "Aquafortis Associates."
       
    • Subsequently in an email to Association President Ellis Percy, Paul referred to Aquafortis Associates as his "neighbors" which email included a heavily redacted email responding to our letter, supposedly written by a mystery Aquafortis Associates member, which, it is now perfectly clear, was actually written by Paul Kelley himself.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who knows or has tried to work with Paul Kelley. It certainly doesn't surprise me because I never believed he wasn't the principle member of Aquafortis Associates in the first place. Probably nobody believed it. But at least now we don't have to pretend we believe it.

• • Later this week I will be posting selected documents from the stack of exhibits Pleasant Pond Mill LLC put into evidence at the public hearing. Most of them are not particularly interesting but some are quite quite revealing.
     
  • Some of you will recall this table I posted back on the 2nd of July:
     

    Inches below top of dam	Rate of fall in 24 hours
    0" to 36"	1"
    36" to 48"	3/4"
    48" to 62"	1/2"
    Below 62"	1/4" or less*

    
    Well I suspect it needs to be qualified with some new information. With the lake having been so low for so long, there is a new dynamic at work that will affect the rate at which the lake falls when the gate is wide open: increased channel friction. With the meadow drained, there is no laminar flow across the marsh any more so all the water that reaches the dam has to course down the channel. And the channel is choked with weeds. This not only prevents people from paddling their canoes down the channel, it also impedes the flow of water down the channel, slowing the rate at which the lake drops when the gate is open. The last time the lake was this low with the gate open, the daily rate of fall was about 3/4" per day. I suspect we'll see a 10% to 15% reduction (0.0075' to 0.01') in the daily fall rate to somewhere around what we saw in the last 24 hours: 0.06' per day. Say hello to the new normal.

• 19 August 2012:
  • I've sent around Yet Another Petition Update Email #15 and posted it on the Petition News page. It is mainly just an update on the public hearing for the benefit of the 2 or 3 people at interest to the petition that either didn't make it to the hearing or couldn't get into the hearing room, plus my usual commentary and rampant speculation on what to expect next.

• 18 August 2012:
  • Hey guess what! Kelley opened the dam's gate today. Big surprise. I swung by this afternoon to check and sure enough, the gate was all the way open. There is no water coming through the hole so I guess he is just being careful. Or paranoid. At least we know now what drives his water level regime, not that it comes as a surprise to me. When I inquired at the store they said that he was seen at the dam around 2pm.
    
    By my calculation the lake has risen only 7.8" so far as a result of the rain and now stands at 39.6" below the top of the dam and roughly 3" below the hole. Paul said at the hearing last night that the lake had risen 11" and was within 1" of the hole. These two perspectives on the situation are not fully inconsistent: I'm measuring the water level at my place, and he is measuring it at the dam; there is often more water at that end of the lake after a big rain than at the main lake because 2/3 of the watershed drains into Clark's Meadow Brook. A 3" differential is not surprising meaning for a while after a big storm, the outlet stream can actually flow INTO the lake. When runoff slows down, the differential reverses.
     
  • I went out fishing today, as did a number of other people, it being a beautiful day. Nobody seemed to be catching much. I certainly wasn't but I enjoyed the afternoon. I was struck by how green the water is getting. I suspect I won't be going swimming again this year.
     
  • First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who attended the public hearing last night for your moral support, and in particular everyone who testified on our behalf. I was a little confused over the format of the hearing and as a result there were time constraints that impacted the other petitioners and interested party's opportunity to testify. Most got their chance. For a variety of reasons there were a couple of people who had intended to testify but didn't get a chance. My apologies. In particular, Howard Nickerson had planned on testifying and in the scramble to get everyone in under the Clary Lake Association's umbrella intervener status, his name fell off the list. I am sincerely sorry.
    
    Paul Kelley hasn't changed his story in years- he's still holding out hope for pulling off a whole-site historical restoration of the so-called Henry Clary Mill Property, as soon as he can find someone with money to partner with and as soon as he can convince the town to give him a waiver. And of course he can't make any repairs to the dam that aren't in keeping with, and done in conjunction with, that whole-site historical restoration. It was pathetic. Many thanks to Senator Chris Johnson for questioning Paul on this: I don't think Paul's inability to respond to Chris's line of questioning with anything but a pained expression went over well with anyone, especially with the DEP.
    
    I suppose in proceedings like this both sides generally go home claiming victory. However, I fail to see how Paul Kelley's team can see their performance last night as being anything but a dismal failure. Last night's hearing was an adjudicatory procedure to collect evidence for the purpose of establishing a water level regime for Clary lake. Testimony was to be limited to the water levels as they pertain to the allowed topics A through H as listed in the Water Level Law. Did Paul Kelley offer any testimony of this nature? No. The only testimony that Paul Kelley delivered selfishly pertained only to his concerns over the safety of his own down stream property. He indicated no concern or remorse whatsoever for the impact his dam management is having on the lake, the wetlands, the boat launch, or the wildlife. In the final analysis, he failed to respond to any of the allowed topics for testimony with an opinion on a satisfactory water level.
    
    This is not going to go well for Paul Kelley, almost all his testimony was irrelevant as it had nothing to do with establishing a water level. So when DEP is going over the testimony and exhibits, they're going to be left wondering just what Paul Kelley offered in the way of valid acceptable testimony:
     
    • Concerned about dam safety issues: Irrelevant!
    • Safety of his down stream property: Irrelevant!
    • Doesn't have the money to repair the dam: Irrelevant!
    • Can't get approval from the town for his development plans: Irrelevant!
    • Whitefield not a participant in FEMA's flood insurance program: Irrelevant!
    • His mill building is on the national historic register: Great! Irrelevant!
    • Can't buy insurance? Given that one stipulation in selling us the dam has always
      been that that we insure it naming him as beneficiary: Humorously irrelevant!
       
  • I think in retrospect the Department's decision to hold the hearing at 5pm on a Friday was a mistake; the time constraints this placed on everyone were unwelcome and impacted the content of the hearing somewhat. A 10am Saturday morning hearing that broke for lunch and continued as long into the afternoon as necessary would have made a lot more sense. As it is, the hearing, which started at 5pm, didn't finish until a little after 10pm. We were all hot, tired, and hungry.
    
    So the next step is filing of our "findings of fact" submission with the DEP which is due one week after the written transcript of the hearing is made available. That will be in 1 week? 2 weeks? Not sure. I will begin work on that later next week. In the mean time I think I'll take a few days off.... yah right. I think I'll start on my findings of fact today, while the hearing is fresh in my mind.

• 17 August 2012:
  • Boy am I glad the public hearing is behind me.
     
  • I don't know how I managed to drop an inch of rain, but 2 independent and reliable local sources report yesterday's rainfall to be between 3.67" and 3.75" not the 2.75" that I reported. Wow. A whole month's worth of rain in 1 day. Will revise water level chart accordingly.
     
  • The public hearing on the petition is today and if you'll excuse me I would like to take a moment and talk about how I'm feeling right now. I am at once elated and saddened as I sit here and make my final preparations for the hearing. I am primarily elated because I have done nothing of real consequence except work on this petition, day and night, every day, day after day since sometime early last November when I decided to pursue a water level petition so today is the exciting culmination of months of rewarding but unrelenting work. On the other hand I am saddened because the very fact that we have arrived at this day means all attempts to resolve this water level crisis have been for naught.
    
    It is pretty simple. If Paul Kelley doesn't like the idea of owning the dam with a lake level order on it, all he needed to do sell us the dam or fix it and maintain a reasonable water level. He's done neither. Now it is too late.
    
    See you all this afternoon :)
     
  • The lake has risen 5.64" since yesterday morning. Peak runoff generally occurs 24 hours after a storm event and I expect the lake level to continue to rise. This is a welcome increase.

• 16 August 2012:
  • Boy did it rain! I measure 2.75" so far. Seems to be about over now, most of the storm has moved off. This is the biggest single rain event this year so far. Back on June 3rd is rained 2.72" which brought the lake up a whopping 17.5", from -36.6" below the top of the dam to -19.2", the highest the lake has gotten this year. That works out to a 6.4" rise per inch of rain. There might be a little less runoff now because the ground is so dry but I expect we'll see a comparable lake level rise, perhaps to as high as 30" below the top of the dam. This begs the question: with the lake likely 6" above the hole in the dam, will the dam owner open the gate on the day of the public hearing?
    
    I just got in from bailing out my boat. It wasn't full of water, it was only half full of water.
     
  • Boy is it raining! I've been too busy and preoccupied with the upcoming water level hearing to pay any attention to local weather reports lately so this rain storm has caught me by surprise- a pleasant surprise in fact, waking up this morning at 5:30 to the sound of rain hitting the tree leaves outside my open window. We had 0.31" this morning at 7am when I made my daily water level measurement, and I thought it had stopped. Since then it has been coming down in buckets. At last check, we've received 1.5" of rain. It has rained so much in fact that my poor-man's rain gauge (a dog food can) was just about filled up and I had to deploy a second one :) This should give the lake a nice boost, perhaps as much as 4".
     
  • Yet Another Lincoln County News Article in yesterday's paper (not available in the online paper). Last week she wrote about the Aquafortis Response to Procedural Order 3. This week she's written about Procedural Order 4. Shlomit Auciello continues to display her fine grasp of a very complicated situation.
     
  • And This Just In: Review agency comments as of 8-16-16, a large PDF containing mostly old stuff, but also a few new (to me) stuff. In particular, emails in reference to Pleasant Pond Mill LLC's FOAA request to MEMA (not particularly interesting), and FWS/NOAA Comments (interesting). The rest you've already seen.
     
  • I've extracted the USFWS Agency Comments from the file I received today and have added them to the site. They are dated April 2012 and this is the first time I've seen them. They raise issues that require attention. Likewise I've extracted the 4 pages of emails regarding MEMA FOAA Emails through 8-16-2012 which are primarily of interest because they show that MEMA is so unconcerned about safety issues surrounding the Clary lake dam that they couldn't even be bothered to provide comments to DEP. In other words, will be difficult for Pleasant Pond Mill and Aquafortis Associates to raise safety issues in relation to lake water levels when the Maine Emergency Management Agency is unconvinced there is an issue.
     
  • The Public Hearing is tomorrow, 5pm at the Jefferson Fire Department building on Route 126 across from All Season's Auto (used to be Jewett's). I'd ask that everyone with even a passing interest in these proceedings to attend, and if you plan on testifying, try to be there by 4:30 pm at the latest so we can get everyone lined up and ready to go.

• 14 August 2012:
  • Anyone else notice the green scum on the lake this morning or is it just over on my side of the lake? Doesn't make me want to go swimming. That green scum might look like pollen but its really dead and decaying cyanobacteria carcasses (blue green algae) floating to the surface. I took some pictures (see at right) and have posted them in the Summer 2012 album. As they die and decompose, they release toxins into the water that are harmful, and in high enough concentrations, fatal to fish and other aquatic life. Algal blooms are usually accompanied by low oxygen conditions which is also bad for fish. I would not expect our bloom to get bad enough to start killing fish but you never know. Algae blooms are a serious problem for any lake regardless of how bad they get. Hopefully this bloom won't get much worse but with hot, dry, calm conditions in the forecast, it could get worse.
    
    Needless to say, don't drink the water and don't let your pets drink the water and I'd personally think twice before swimming in it.

• 13 August 2012:
  • I've added a letter from Attorney Robert J. Rubin to Heather Parent, Presiding Officer, expressing his intention of representing the Clary Lake Association at the upcoming Public Hearing. I've added it under Department Communications. We are extremely fortunate to have Bob, who is himself a Clary lake shore owner, working with us on this petition initiative.
     
  • I never really mentioned what causes cyanobacteria to multiply and cause an algae bloom- the reason is I'm still learning about this process and I like to at least have a basic understanding of something on before talking about it. The single biggest factor bringing about an algal bloom is having nutrients available to fuel algae growth, typically phosphorus and to a lesser degree, nitrogen; both are carried into the lake in rain runoff. Phosphorus also tends to settle in bottom sediments where it gets bound up, but it can get back into the water under conditions of low oxygen. Sunlight, high water temperatures, and generally calm conditions are also contributing factors. This year, early ice out, warm spring weather, and a large amount of rain in June followed by warm, sunny, and generally calm weather certainly all contributed to our algal bloom.
    
    Undoubtedly a major contributing factor to this years algal bloom are the low water levels we're experiencing which can affect blue green algae growth in many ways. First the lower water levels have resulted in a reduction of the surface area of the lake to about 50% of it's size when full and about 60% of its volume when full. The net effect of reduced lake volume is higher concentrations of nutrients in the remaining water body. Lower water levels mean temperatures are higher which acts to reduce dissolved oxygen causing phosphorus to be released from bottom sediments. To top it off, with virtually all the shallow water wetlands around the lake completely drained, they aren't doing their part to buffer and absorb nutrients- one of their major roles in a lake ecology. Furthermore, when  bottom sediments are disturbed by wind, rain, and wave action as a result of low water, phosphorus which is normally bound up in the sediments can be released into the water volume meaning you can still see rising phosphorus levels even when there isn't a lot of runoff as in this past July. Lastly, with the lake so low and so little runoff occurring, the lake which normally flushes about 1.8 times per year isn't flushing at all now and in fact, nutrients in the lake are being further concentrated through evaporation.
    
    David Hodsdon, our Volunteer Lake Monitor will be discussing the algae bloom, its causes, and its impact on Clary lake during his testimony at the public hearing this coming Friday.

• 12 August 2012:
  • It occurred to me that I really didn't know anything about algae blooms and whenever that happens, I set about to learn something new. What is undesirable about an algae bloom? What causes it? So I did some research. I always thought that the algae responsible for blooms were plants, but it turns out they are a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria that obtain their energy from photosynthesis which means like plants, they consume carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They also give of a variety of toxins, the most common being microcystin. There are a lot of different varieties of cyanobacteria, some of which are quite common, and they live in a variety of environments- fresh water, salt water, brackish water, etc., and they're ancient. They're some of the earliest life forms.
    
    So I dug out my old microscope and took a sample of lake water and prepared a slide to see what I could see, and the algae wasn't hard to find- it looked just like the pictures of blue green algae I found on the web. I ended up with the picture at right, here magnified somewhere around 200x or so. It's not a very good picture but it clearly appears to be blue green algae of the genus Anabena which is one of the most common of the blue green algae and includes quite a few species. Here's a picture of Anabena scheremetievi that I got off a Purdue University web site and it looks an awful lot like what we've got blooming in Clary lake this summer.
    
    The toxins are released when the cyanobacteria die and their bodies decay. This can cause clumps or mats of the decaying algae that can look a lot like the pollen we see around the lake in the spring. The algae bloom we're having on Clary lake this summer is mild judging from pictures I've seen from other places around the country (like these from Wisconsin) but that doesn't mean it isn't serious. It can and likely will get worse before it gets better.
    
    Microcystin is toxic to animals and humans and in high enough concentrations can be lethal. The Maine Voluntary Lake Monitoring Program keeps track of algae blooms around the state.They have a good but quite technical write up in their Water Column periodical that is worth looking at if you want more information. As for microcystin toxicity, the World Health Organization (WHO) has prepared a Guidelines for Safe Recreational Water Environments. The California Department of Public Health has a good site about blue green algal blooms, and there is a page on the Maine Department of Environmental Protection site about cyanobacteria that is worth looking at.
    
    In short: Our algae bloom is something to worry about, but nothing to panic about.
     
• 11 August 2012:
  • I've sent around yet another Petition Update Email #14. Thank goodness for a rainy day.

• 10 August 2012:
  • ...and the Department has responded! They have sent around their Clary Lake Procedural Order 4 as follows: 1) Aquafortis Associates request to be removed from these proceedings is denied and 2) the motion to dismiss these proceedings for lack of jurisdiction based on Section 840(1)(D) of the Water level Act is denied. I have added the document under Department Communications.
     
  • Anthony Buxton has sent around his response to my response to his response to Procedural Order 3 which I have posted under Department Communications. I will not continue this exchange, I await the decision of the Department....
     
  • Yet Another Lincoln County News Article by Shlomit Auciello covering the Aquafortis Associates Response to Procedural Order 3. It has a couple of errors in it but the response itself is so full of erroneous assumptions and unsupported statements that I suppose a few booboos in the article hardly matter. I suppose from now on I should be looking carefully at the paper because I didn't spot this article until someone else brought it to my attention (thanks John!).
     
  • I've been talking to David more this morning and he is of the opinion that we're having an algae bloom NOW, the last secchi disk reading (a measure of the clarity of the water) was 1.78 meters. Anything less than 2 meters indicates an algae bloom is underway. The first one since 2009. This squares with my own observation the other day when out on the lake that the water looked cloudy. According to a representative from the VLMP speaking about lakes in general this year, "we have had a nearly perfect scenario for algae growth this summer, starting with early ice out, unusually warm weather, heavy rains in June, followed by hot, clear, relatively calm conditions."
    
    On top of these conditions, with the lake's volume having been reduced to approximately 50% of it's capacity when full and with runoff remaining about the same, nutrient concentration in the remaining water volume is increased substantially. Also, normally Clary lake "flushes" it's total volume about 1.8 times per year. With the dam's gate currently shut there is no flushing taking place at all, in fact the nutrient load in the lake is being further concentrated due to evaporation. And needless to say, the wetlands, which are all drained, aren't doing their part to buffer and absorb nutrients. Given the circumstances, this algae bloom is likely to get worse as the summer progresses, not better. Here's a link to the Clary Lake water level data through 2011.
     
  • David Hodsdon reports that Total Phosphorus in Clary Lake was 0.023 mg/l on 5/16/12 and 0.027 mg/l on 7/25/12.  Typical is 0.015 to 0.02 mg/l. This is an unsettling development as high phosphorus levels are the major cause of algae blooms. We'll keep you posted.

• 09 August 2012:
  • I have just posted my Letter to Heather Parent RE Aquafortis Response to Procedural Order 3 being my official response. Much of it is a distillation of my ranting below. I'm not a lawyer but sometimes in my capacity as Petition Spokesperson, I get to play one. I'm not particularly enjoying it.
     
  • It appears to me upon further study that the crux of their argument is that the mill privilege and flowage rights are only attached to and associated with the so-called Clary Mill and it's lower dam and are separate from and have always been separate from the so-called Clary lake dam (the upper dam). The flaw in this argument is that it was the construction of the upper dam which flooded upstream property that invoked the Maine Mill Act, which act provided for the flooding of upstream properties (with just compensation) in the interest of  promoting industry (eminent domain for the private sector). Clearly, the flowage rights referred to in the deed to Aquafortis Associates (Book 4275, Page 85 Lincoln County Registry of Deeds, dated 13 April 2010) derive from and are intimately associated with the so-called upper Clary Lake Dam as the lower dam doesn't flood any upstream property. That Chester Chase conveyed the mill privilege and flowage rights to Arthur Enos in 1995 shows he believed they were appurtenant to the upper Clary Lake dam.
    
    Dorey v. Estate of Spicer, 715 A.2d 182, 184-87 (Me. 1998) is a fascinating court case involving the very question of the separation of flowage rights from the mill privilege and property with which they are associated. The conclusion of the Maine Supreme Court is that it ain't allowed. Mr. Buxton even cites this court case in support of their argument. Clearly the flowage rights referred to in Book 4275 Page 85 belong with and are appurtenant to the Clary Lake dam and since Aquafortis Associates now owns them, they should remain a party to the proceedings. Seems as though this opens up a whole big can-o-worms.

• 08 August 2012:
  • I have finished reading the Aquafortis Response to Procedural Order 3. While this document purports to be a response to Procedural Order 3 it does not provide the simple written evidence the order requested. Instead it offers up a questionable legal analysis that is unsupported by hard evidence or facts. It is difficult for me to imagine the Department accepting this convoluted statement as sufficient evidence to warrant the removal of Aquafortis Associates LLC from the Service List. Furthermore it is equally difficult for me to imagine the Department concluding they lack jurisdiction in this matter and granting the motion to dismiss the Clary Lake Water Level Petition.
    
    I suppose I could leave it there and move on but that's not my style and for what it's worth I know a little bit about these things. I'm not a lawyer but in my opinion the document is fraught with invalid assumptions, questionable legal interpretations, and some apparent outright lies. The first issue that jumps out at me is their assertion that "any rights to submerged lands held by AquaFortis are not “flowage rights” but ownership in fee." This is a patently absurd statement. It is true Henry Clary bought selected pieces of meadow property in the late 1800s and early 1900s and Aquafortis might now own those pieces of land, or they might be owned by the Chase family, but to suggest that all the land between the normal high water mark of Clary lake and the natural low water mark is owned by Aquafortis in fee simple today as a result of prescription or (gasp!) adverse possession over the years is one of the most outrageous claims I've ever encountered in my career as a land surveyor, and I've heard some good ones.
    
    Consider: if you walk across a piece of property over a certain period of years, you might well end up with a right- a prescriptive easement- that allows you to continue walking across the property as you have become accustomed. You don't end up owning the property or the path you walked on, and it doesn't mean you can turn your walking path into a road and drive your car over it. Likewise, if you flood someone's property for a good many years you likely will obtain a prescriptive right to continue flooding it in the future but as above, you don't end up owning the land you flooded. One also can't claim merchantable title to land through adverse possession without proving the claim in court. Good luck with that, Aquafortis.
    
    Now consider this statement: "The deed in question did not transfer “any other mill privilege and flowage rights” to AquaFortis because no such rights exist in relation to Clary Lake Dam. Rather, the relevant mill privilege exists in relation to the original, lower dam built to power the Clary Mill."
    
    That statement is wrong to the point of being fraudulent. Explain to me how flowage rights are needed for a dam that doesn't flood any but a little bit of your own property? It was the upper dam that impounded the water that created Clary Lake and flooded hundreds of acres of land that the dam owner didn't own, and it is precisely because of the upper dam's existence that flowage rights were required to operate it legally. Chester Chase clearly knew this which is why he sold the mill privilege and flowage rights to Art Enos when he sold him the dam, and Art Enos knew it to be so when he turned around and sold them to Paul Kelley. I knew Chester. If the mill privilege and flowage rights didn't go with the dam, he wouldn't have sold them. Aquafortis' assertion that the mill privilege and flowage rights pertain to the lower dam only is laughable.
    
    So it is difficult for me not to approach this matter from the perspective of a land surveyor, given my background and I have to keep reminding myself that this is a water level issue and not a boundary or title issue though clearly they would like to turn it into one. Don't be fooled. This latest tirade is nothing more than typical legal maneuvering designed to delay, confuse, and distract.
    
    State law provides for the Department of Environmental Protection to respond to a petition of aggrieved lake shore owners by holding a public hearing, gathering information, and finally issuing a water level order. The laws establishing these procedures have been tried and tested over the years and have withstood the test of time; I am confident they will hold up to this assault. This isn't the first time the Department's jurisdiction and authority have been questioned. It won't be the last. We should keep our attention focused on the impact the mismanagement of the Clary lake dam is having on the fragile environment and ecology of Clary lake and stand our ground.

• 07 August 2012:
  • Enough has happened in the past couple of weeks to justify another Petition Update #13 which has just been mailed.
     
  • Anthony Buxton has submitted (with 2 minutes to spare!) his Response to Procedural Order 3 in the matter of Aquafortis Associates being part of these proceedings. It is a 9 page document and I haven't even read it yet. I'm sure I'll have more to say when I've chewed through it.
     
  • I spent a little time yesterday wandering around and taking pictures of the marsh over on the east end of Clary Lake by the inlet at Route 126/215. One thing I wanted to do was obtain elevations of the inverts of the culvert running under Route 126 to assess the impact of fluctuating lake water levels on the pond and wetland on the southerly side of Route 126. I was able to get approximate elevations as follows: the invert of the outlet end of the culvert is about 146.9' and the invert at the inlet on the other side of the road is 1.0' higher or about 147.9'. This would mean the culvert would be roughly 1/2 full on the inlet end when the lake level is at the top of the dam. It also means that when the lake level falls to 2' below the top of the dam, the pond and wetland on the opposite side of the road is effectively drained. These figures are approximate and could be off by as much as 6"; I will refine them when I get a chance.
    
    The inlet stream running into the lake now is little more than series of stagnant pools connected by very slowly flowing water little more than a couple of inches deep; there are some good sized fish trapped in some of these shallow pools that try and dart away when you approach. They are apparently unable to find their way out to the lake. They will likely not survive the summer. I also found some short wild rice (Zizania palustris angustifolia) growing along the stream. I've added a couple of pictures of the stream and rice plants to the Clary Images album.

• 06 August 2012:
  • Anthony Buxton, Counsel for Aquafortis Associates LLC and Pleasant Pond Mill LLC has filed a Motion For Extension of the August 5th deadline for Aquafortis Associates to produce evidence that they no longer own the mill privilege and flowage rights, citing the complexity of the situation. Complexity? If they in deed plan on transferring the mill privilege and flowage rights out of Aquafortis Associates, it will be interesting to see who they transfer the rights to... transferring them back to Pleasant Pond Mill LLC would seem to be too logical.
    
    The request has been granted as per email just received from Beth Callahan. New deadline: 5pm Tuesday August 7th.

• 05 August 2012:
  • I've located 3 satellite images from DigitalGlobe and have uploaded them to the site. They are dated 08 November 2011, 20 April 2012, and 12 July 2012. Despite the small scale (larger scale images cost money) all three clearly show the marsh on the northwest end of the lake drained. For the 2011 image I estimate the water level was 5' to 5.5' below the top of the dam. For the other 2 images I have accurate water levels. I will be using some or all of these photographs as part of my testimony at the public hearing; I may spring for a larger scale image.
     
  • Yesterday's Clary Lake Association annual meeting was a resounding success! Somehow in all the excitement nobody circulated a signup sheet or took any pictures so we have no accurate count of the number of people but it was by all accounts the most well-attended annual meeting anyone can remember. Memberships now stand at 70, up from 31 this time last year and several more are expected in the next few days. Nobody I've spoke to can remember the Association having so many members. Thank all of you for your support! And your food!
    
    Those of you who didn't make it to the meeting can read the minutes as soon as they're ready- I'll post them here sometime next week. While there was a lot of discussion, very little actual business was transacted- a sign of a good meeting in my opinion. The 2012/2013 budget was presented, discussed, modified, and approved; David Hodsdon gave a water quality report, and Mary Shaw gave the loon report; Jack Holland accepted the role of Association Spokesperson at the upcoming Public Hearing. Deb Sanderson spoke briefly about her interest in and support of the petition, and I spoke at length about the petition and what to expect at the public hearing. Needless to say, there was a lot of interest in the petition and I fielded a lot of questions. Ellis Percy finally cut me off or I'd still be talking about it! Howard Nickerson who owns property up in the meadow spoke about the wildlife he has seen up there and the impact this draw down has had on the ecology and wildlife in the area. He will be testifying at the public hearing.

• 04 August 2012:
  • Perfect weather for the Annual meeting!
     
  • In my never-ending search for more and better maps and aerial photographs, I've discovered quite by accident some additional information about the High Resolution Composite Marsh Photograph that I posted back in the early spring (see the 28 March 2012 news entry). It turns out the picture is  a DigitalGlobe(tm) photograph, 0.3 meter resolution (1 meter/pixel) taken 07/17/2010. I found this and other images for sale on the Terraserver.com web site. One I'd dearly like to have is an 11 November 2011 black and white high-resolution photograph (0.5 meters) that shows the marsh at the northwest end of the lake reduced to only a channel. They want $$ for that.
     
  • The US Geological Survey products web site http://store.usgs.gov/ has free-for-downloading 7.5' USGS topo sheets in modern PDF layered format which includes a variety of layers that you can turn on and off: a high-resolution color aerial photograph (apparently the same one used on the National Wetlands Inventory online mapper and the Maine GIS web site), projection grids, geographic names, structures, boundaries, roads and transportation data, hydrography, 10' contours, and land cover. I downloaded the North Whitefield 7.5' quadrangle and have posted it for your convenience. It's large, 26 megabytes large, and that's compressed. However, it's really an amazing piece of work. There is a utility program you can download that allows you to do more stuff with these maps like calculate distances and areas that I'll be evaluating shortly. I had a little trouble uploading the file, Roadrunner Internet isn't working to well these days. If you find the file is corrupted, please let me know.
     
  • While on the subject of maps and mapping, the US Geological Survey also has a relatively new online mapping application: http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/. This application includes rather new high-resolution aerial photography. One of the neat things you can do with this application is scale NGVD88 elevations off the map.

• 03 August 2012:
  • Yet another Lincoln County News article by reporter Shlomit Auciello entitled "DEP denies Dam Owner's Request" appeared in this week's Lincoln County News. I didn't see the article on the front page when I glanced at the paper yesterday, thanks to Ellis Percy for bringing it to my attention. Shlomit has written a series of comprehensive, well-researched articles and she clearly has a good grasp on a rather complicated situation that even has me scratching my head sometimes. One small booboo in the article: Aquafortis Associates LLC obtained title to the mill property and flowage rights in 2010, not 2012.
     
  • Preparations for tomorrow's Clary Lake Association Annual Meeting continue. The weather is supposed to be mostly sunny and hot. I certainly hope you're planning on going to this meeting, there's a lot to discuss including the petition. Just a few reminders:
     
    • Meeting Time is 2:00 pm. Be early! Don't be late! Milling around and talking before the meeting is half the fun of attending in the first place!
       
    • Our State Representative Deb Sanderson is planning to attend to show her support for the water level petition and will be available to answer questions. If you're not a Republican, don't worry about it, this isn't about politics.
       
    • At the end of the meeting there will be a pot-luck supper so bring along your favorite salad, casserole, soup, pie, cake, or whatever else you have that passes for food in your household. That said, don't let lack of a dish stop you from coming, there's always plenty and we'd rather have you arrive empty handed and go home full than not arrive at all. Beverages (including coffee & tea) and will be provided. No alcohol please.
       
    • We'll have a bunch of chairs but more than likely not enough for everyone so on your way out grab a folding chair or 2 if you have some handy, otherwise don't worry about it. If half of you bring something to sit on, we'll be fine.
       
    • Parking will be a challenge and I apologize in advance for that. There is parking across the road, there will be signs. You can also park on the side of the road. There will be traffic cones. We'd like to keep the driveway clear for dropping people off and deliveries.
       
    • Feel free to arrive by kayak, canoe, or small boat- there's plenty of what passes for beach over on this side of the lake where I pull up my boat where you can pull up yours. I have not put in my dock this year so there's no place to tie up a larger boats.
       
    • If I think of anything else, I'll post it here so you might check in before you leave. If you have any questions, call: 207-549-5991.

• 30 July 2012:
  • Last Saturday afternoon I gave our attorney Robert Rubin the 50 cent tour of Clary lake which included viewing the drained wetland at the inlet of Clary lake, the boat launch, the waterfowl and wading bird habitat in the northerly end of the meadow (south of the Sennott road), and of course, the dam. It was a beautiful day and the boat launch should have been a busy place but there were only 2 cars parked there, and no boat trailers- understandable given the shallow water at the end of the ramp. Most impressive was the 90 acre NRPA Inland Waterfowl & Wading Bird Habitat (IWWH 031590) which adjoins the McKeen and Nickerson properties on the west and the Shorey, Weeks, and Mathews properties on the north and east. This area is often referred to as Clark's Meadow though technically Clark's Meadow is on the other side of the Sennott road, though Clark's Meadow Brook runs through this meadow and empties into Clary lake.
    
    This is the same wetland Beth Callahan viewed during her site visit last spring (pictured here); this wetland hasn't had any water to speak of (or wading birds) in it for a couple of years. The picture at right, taken by my wife, shows Bob and me looking out over this valuable meadow. The deer flies were awful. Just awful. What a magnificent place!

• 13 July 2012:
  • Lotta updates today... after a busy day yesterday. I have just received a map showing the AMHI campus with the location of the Response Services building where the pre-hearing conference will be held which I've added under Department Communications.
     
  • UPDATE: I spoke with a bird biologist with the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife a bit ago. He said to bag the loon and keep it cool and someone would pick it up next week. From what I described, he said it sounded like a casualty of a territorial squabble. He said all dead loons are sent to Tufts University for autopsy. I told him I'd like to know the results but he couldn't promise me that.
    
    A dead loon has been found on the side of the lake in the cove off on Hodsdon Lane, near the private boat launch. I've contacted the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Apparently it was found by Linda Vigue or some of the kids at her daycare. She told Jack Holland who left me a message on my machine, perhaps sometime yesterday afternoon. Not sure of the timing, but judging from appearances it's been laying there in the hot sun for the better part of 24 hours. I went up and retrieved the loon a bit ago, bagged it, and have put it in my freezer awaiting someone from IF&W to come and claim the body. The loon appears healthy (apart from being dead) with nothing broken and no apparent injuries. It weighs 10 pounds. The naturalist in me is interested in such things.
    
    David Knight told me this morning he'd seen a loon hanging around the cove recently, not acting too lively, and the other day Eleanor Goldberg reported to me in an email:
    
    "...on Thursday, I witnessed a loon fight between two males (I assume), the likes of which I have NEVER seen. One loon chased and bit at another, even chasing him, and following him, out of the water onto the shore near us.  Both loons went back into the water after a short time, and the chasing/fighting continued.  Since then we've only seen one pair and an occasional third bird; it looks like one pair got chased off the lake."
    
    One wonders if these sightings are connected and perhaps the persecuted bird ended up dead. In any event, it's been a hard summer for loons on Clary Lake. I'll post more information when I've had a chance to talk with an IF&W biologist.
  
  
  • This morning I received and have posted a revised copy of the Clary Lake Procedural Petition document which now includes the times of the meetings: "approximately 5:00pm" for both the pre-hearing conference and the public hearing. We already knew this, but I guess you can't be too fussy in such matters. The file is also significantly smaller than the original. No need to download this one if you've already looked at the first one.
     
  • This long stretch of time with the dam being closed and without any significant rainfall provides an excellent opportunity to model the lake's water loss. To that end I've revised the July 2012 water level chart to show a linear regression line and formula which allows you to calculate the lake level below the top of the dam in inches for any day of the month, assuming of course there is no rainfall and the dam's gate remains closed. This is incidentally the longest the dam's gate has been closed in a few years.
     
  • The Board of the Clary Lake Association held a short impromptu board meeting the evening of the 11th of July to discuss the upcoming hearings and make plans for the annual meeting. The minutes have been posted.
     
  • Web traffic is way UP this month.

• 12 July 2012:
  • The dates of the pre-hearing conference and the public hearing have been set. I received a lengthy document from DEP this morning which I've posted on the Lake Level Petition News page.
     
    • The pre-hearing conference will be held on Friday, July 20, 2012 at the Department's Response Services building in Augusta. The conference will begin at approximately 5:00 PM (Directions to follow).
       
    • The Public Hearing has been scheduled for Friday, August 17, 2012 at the Jefferson Fire Department. The hearing will begin at approximately 5:00 PM.
       
  • It is clear now that the Public Hearing will be a full-blown adjudicatory hearing, contrary to rumors that it would be a more relaxed, informal proceeding.
    
    I have added the dates of the conference and hearing to the Event Calendar.
    
    The question remains who should plan to attend the pre-hearing conference? If you are intending to testify at the hearing, offer comments written or verbal, or wish to intervene in the proceedings, you should attend. If you're just interested in the proceedings, you should by all means attend. The pre-hearing conference is not an opportunity to comment or discuss the petition. It is an information-dissemination opportunity for the Department to make sure everyone interested in participating in the hearing knows the ground rules. To that end you can read the Water Level Law, Title 38, Section 840 from the web site. It contains among other things the list of 8 topics for relevant testimony.
    
    I suspect most of you will NOT attend the pre-hearing conference, and that is OK. I will be going as will as many of the Clary Lake Association Board members who can swing it. I'll provide a full report of what happened for those of you who don't go.
    
    I've sent Yet Another Petition Update Email which is posted on the web site.
• 10 July 2012:
  • I've added a Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association Position Statement to the Lake Level Petition News page under Supplementary Materials. This letter was sent to DEP back in June; I just received a copy directly from SVCA to post on the web site. I think it's a great letter and I'm pleased that the SVCA both shares and validates our concerns about the impact of the ongoing mismanagement of Clary lake's water level on our wildlife and wetlands. I welcome having the SVCA on our side in this matter.
• 06 July 2012:
  • The dam's gate was closed sometime yesterday morning and I've updated the water level chart to reflect this change of status. I was prompted to check today because the lake level this morning is unchanged from yesterday morning's level. I also happened to check last night around 7pm after the wind died down and it was unchanged so I suspected at that time that the dam might have been closed. It is too late to be of any help to the nesting loons but it is a welcome change nonetheless. With the lake down over 40" below the top of the dam, boating safety is again an issue due to rock hazards and general shallow water (especially in the northwest end of the lake), public access is compromised because the state boat launch is unusable for any but the smallest boats. Worse, at 40" below the top of the dam, the lake's total surface area has been reduced by well over 40%, a flagrant violation of the State's "3/4 Wetted Rule" a la Chapter 587. Even the State's own inadequate Minimum Flows Recommendation limited potential draw downs to 2.7', a figure which I can easily demonstrate is way excessive. In English, that means the lake's valuable wetlands and productive shallow water areas have been drained. If the dam owner is trying to gain brownie points by closing the dam now with the lake at this level, he's going to be disappointed.
    
    Is there any good news? Sure. With the water level so far below the top of the dam, the dam isn't leaking hardly at all which means even without rain, we should see a relatively stable water level for a while.
     
  • The recent Lincoln County News article is now on the paper's web site, but without pictures. If you want the pictures, continue to use my scanned copy.

• 05 July 2012:
  • I've received word from DEP this morning of their intention to schedule a pre-hearing conference later this month, and the long-awaited public hearing next month. This is great news! The pre-hearing conference will likely be scheduled sometime during the week of July 16th at the Department offices in Augusta, time to be announced. The public hearing itself is to be scheduled sometime during the week of August 13th at a place to be announced. They're going to try and line up the Whitefield School for an evening meeting. I have added these proposed date-ranges to the Events Calendar.
    
    The pre-hearing conference is intended primarily as an informational meeting for people interested in testifying and/or intervening at the public hearing. It is not going to be an opportunity to comment on the petition- that's what the public hearing is for. Most of you will not want to attend the pre-hearing meeting, and that's OK. If you're wondering if you should or are uncertain, give me a call or drop by so we can talk about it. A full report of what happened will be available here. When I receive official notice of the pre-hearing conference date, time, and location I'll post it.
    
    The timing is about perfect as the annual meeting of the Clary Lake Association will be held Saturday afternoon, August 4th, roughly mid-way between the pre-hearing conference and the public hearing. The annual meeting will be a great opportunity to gather with your neighbors and rally support for the petition. Debra Sanderson, our State Representative will be attending the annual meeting. She will weigh in on the petition initiative and will be available to answer questions. More about the annual meeting, and a proposed agenda, later.
    
    Stay tuned. I'll provide more information as it becomes available.

• 04 July 2012:
  • The long-awaited Lincoln County News article (for which I was interviewed back on June 1st) has finally been published in today's paper. It is not available online yet, but I've scanned a copy and have posted it over on the Lake Level Petition News page, and I have cross-linked it here for your convenience. It's a well-researched and well-written article and I think the reporter did a generally good job but it does contain a few inaccuracies that should be corrected, and several statements that deserve a rebuttal. I will be preparing a letter to the editor in the near future.
     
  • Yesterday morning I headed over to check on the loon nest one final time and I ran into Tim Harkins in his kayak on his way to do the same thing. He was able to paddle deep into the cove and confirm that nest the nest is unoccupied. It was clearly empty, even seen from a distance. Tim said he'd seen a loon sitting on it 2 days before (July 1st) but the water has clearly receded enough to make it impossible for the loons to get to their nest, 10' to 15' or more. Tim should have been able to paddle right to the nest but there wasn't enough water for him to even get close. Incidentally, I've never seen anyone stand up in a kayak without dumping it. Tim calmly stood up to survey the scene and then sat down again without incident. I was impressed.
     
  • As is usually the case, there is 1 pair of resident loons on the lake this year. There is a second pair that flies in to visit from time to time, presumably the same pair but maybe not. Some of you may have noticed how unafraid these particular loons are of humans this year, often approaching close to people in canoes and kayaks, or near shore. They swam by the other day not 30' from where I was standing and I got some great pictures of them. I've posted one where one of them was stretching it's leg and flapping it's foot out behind it. I've always gotten a kick out of seeing them do that. They're able to do it because their legs are positioned far back on their body, behind their balance point. This feature allows them to swim well but makes them extremely ungainly on land. While adults can struggle to traverse a little dry land if they have to, their nests have to be situated at or very near the water's edge so their babies can get in and out of the water. Baby loons are able to swim immediately after hatching, but they can't walk at all. They are not fed regurgitated food, they are fed fresh-caught fish out on the lake by their parents, right from the start.
    
    So that's it for loon nesting this year- twice failed due to wildly fluctuating water levels. They will not try again.

• 03 July 2012:
  • I'm pretty certain the second loon nest has been abandoned. With the dam's gate wide open it was pretty much inevitable: since they started sitting back on June 20th, the lake has fallen over 6" and it is likely they are no longer able to get to the nest. The last time I saw a loon sitting on it was 5 days ago on June 28th. I took a picture yesterday afternoon showing the area where the nest is located; it is a little right of center in the photograph at right at the point marked, and it looks to be at least 8' to 10' from the water now- an insurmountable distance for these remarkable birds that can swim and fly, but not walk.
    
    As late as it is, it is unlikely the loons will try nesting again this year. I will refrain from comment other than to say the first nest, abandoned due to high water and this one, likely abandoned due to low water both serve to illustrate how fragile a relationship wildlife has with mother nature and how dependent wildlife is on a stable water level. The lake has fluctuated wildly over a range of more than 42" since the ice went out on April 13th. If the dam were in good shape and the lake level properly managed, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
     
• 02 July 2012:
  • The lake has fallen over 5" since the loons started their second nest on the north shore back around the 20th of June. The nest, which was established high out of the water to start with, may already have been stranded by low water as loons can't walk on land and need to be able to swim to the nest and hoist themselves up on it. If the nest isn't stranded yet, it will be soon. I swung by the nest site yesterday and didn't see a loon sitting on the nest, but on warm days they often take a break from sitting to feed. It appears that people are respecting the LOONS NESTING signs.
     
  • There appear to be 2 pairs of loons on the lake this summer. The annual Audubon Loon Count will take place Saturday 21 July between 7:00am and 7:30am. Mary Shaw and Bob Antognoni will be doing the count this year.
     
  • There are a number of factors that affect the rate at which the lake loses water when the gate is open. The main ones I've identified are the time since the last rain and the degree of soil saturation (affect the rate of runoff), leaks in the dam (significant), and variable surface area. Assuming more or less average values for the variables (and neglecting leaks) I've identified some general fall rates that seem to apply most of the time, assuming the dam gate is fully open:
     

    Inches below top of dam	Rate of fall in 24 hours
    0" to 36"	1"
    36" to 48"	3/4"
    48" to 62"	1/2"
    Below 62"	1/4" or less*

    
    These are general rates but I would expect actual rates to fall within 20% of them. When the water level is between 0" and 36" below the top of the dam,  leaks are a significant portion of the water loss, as much as 15% to 20%. For this reason, the real rate of fall we've seen in this water level range is closer to 1.25" than 1". There is also a transitition range between fall rates too- we're at -38" now and in the last 24 hours we've lost 0.84", not 0.75" as the table would suggest. But the day before we lost 1" and I expect tomorrow we'll be closer to 3/4" than we are today.
    
    *I don't have any data for fall rates when the lake is much lower than 62" below the top of the dam. The lake reached -62.5" back in late April and it had been falling at a rate of 1/2" per day up to that point. As the lake approaches it's rock bottom low (somewhere around 72" below the top of the dam) the fall rate is going to approach zero.

• 01 July 2012:
  • With rain a few days behind us, runoff has diminished and the lake has resumed falling at a more accelerated rate. It fell 0.10' (1.2") since yesterday morning and is sitting this morning at an elevation of 147.53' or 37.3" below the top of the dam. The gate is OPEN (dam status is now included on the chart).
    
    Locally, we received 6.68" of rain in June, making it one of the wettest Junes on record. For this reason, despite the gate being open for (almost) the whole month, the lake ended the month only 1/2" lower than it started. It rose a total of 16.8", from 35.9" to only 19.1" below the top of the dam by the end of the first week of June, and has been pretty much steadily falling since then despite some occasional rain, reaching 36.1" below the top of the dam on the last day of the month.
    
    As I mentioned previously, I've made a number of changes to the water level chart, most recently I've aligned the right side Inches of Precipitation scale with the left side grid lines, which makes it easier to read. Also, I've been archiving individual Monthly Water Level Charts for a while, for my own use, but I'm now making them available on the web site for anyone interested.
    
    As we head into the middle of summer, I have a feeling we're in for significantly reduced water levels. While April, May, and June were months with average or above average rainfall, long range projections are for below average precipitation at least for the next 3 months. Furthermore there is no reason to believe Paul Kelley has any intention of managing the dam in an ecologically friendly manner, so we should prepare for extreme low water conditions. Hopefully fall rains will bring a reprieve. As of this morning, there is only 1.96' of water covering the foot of the ramp, 4.1" less than what the State feels is the absolute minimum for safely launching a boat from a trailer. You can still do it if you're careful and your boat isn't too large. We're back in dangerous boating territory, the ledges up in the northwest end of the lake are covered by a little over a foot of water now. Many of the hazards have been marked, but not all of them. Caution is advised.
     

• 29 June 2012:
  • I've made some long-overdue changes to the water level chart just to keep everyone on their toes. I've reversed the primary and secondary axis so now inches below the top of the dam is the primary axis on the left and inches of precipitation is the secondary axis on the right. The grid lines now pertain to the lake level and make it easier to look at the chart and see what the water level is. I also removed the day grid lines to unclutter things, and I've added Dam Status to the chart so you can see at a glance whether the gate is open, closed, or somewhere in between.
    
    The water level chart isn't just an intellectual exercise for me, though I must admit it serves that purpose. More importantly, it will provide crucial and incontrovertible evidence to the DEP of Clary lake's excessive water level fluctuations resulting from the dam's poor condition and mismanagement.
     
  • Still no word from DEP on when they will schedule a public hearing. It now appears that the hearing, whenever it is, will be after the Clary Lake Association's annual meeting on Saturday, August 4th.

• 25 June 2012:
  • I've been told that police officers with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department were overheard talking on a police scanner about the dam this past weekend. I was also told that the dam owners were seen at the dam opening the gate around 1:30 pm Saturday afternoon. Also, there is reportedly now a surveillance camera set up in an upstairs window of the red building, pointing down at the dam. All this plus the fact that it makes little sense for them to close the dam Friday morning only to open it up again Saturday afternoon leads me to conclude that someone other than the dam owner was responsible for closing the dam's gate sometime early Friday morning. I was ready to believe they closed the gate one day and opened it the next, but not given this new information.
    
    I do not condone such unilateral action. The law has provided us with a statutory process for addressing our dissatisfaction with the dam owner's water level management and we are pursuing that avenue. The law does not provide for us taking matters into our own hands. While I do seem to be rumor-central these days, I don't know nor do I want to know who closed the dam and I would ask everyone to please be patient and let the DEP address this matter in their own time. Rest assured, the days when Paul Kelley can operate the dam as he sees fit are numbered.

• 24 June 2012:
  • The gate on the dam remained closed for just about a day. It was closed on the morning of the 22nd and was reopened on the afternoon of the 23rd. I figured it had to be open again when I checked the lake level this morning and found that it had fallen 1/4" in the previous 24 hours despite the 3/4" of rain we received in the same period: the lake should have come up a couple of inches. A quick look at the dam a bit ago confirmed my suspicions. For what its worth, Paul Kelley appears to be trying to target a water level of 36" below the top of the dam, either to cater to the needs of the nesting loons, or for some other reason. All I can say is good luck: such attempts to micromanage the lake level are ultimately destined to fail.
    
    We've received 5.05" of rain so far this month.

• 23 June 2012:

• • The lake level remains unchanged this morning from where it was yesterday morning at this time (even though it was down 1/4" last night) as a result of the gate having been closed sometime yesterday morning and a small amount of rain we received in the night- enough to exactly offset the amount of water leaking from the dam. Otherwise I would have expected to see a drop of around 1/2" this morning. We can only hope that we continue to get enough rain to more or less maintain this water level for a time without getting too much. We're effectively at 36" below the top of the dam now, the boat launch is barely usable and the valuable bird and fish habitat in Clary's expansive marsh areas are effectively drained, but as we all know, it can get a lot worse.
    
    I will assume that Paul Kelley is targeting this water level in an attempt to maintain a suitable water level for the nesting loons. Give the near-impossibility of targeting a specific water level by opening and closing the gate, we can only hope that his water level management efforts over the next month are successful.
     
  • I have posted a document in the Supplementary Petition Materials section written by Thomas Gillette about his experiences on Clary lake dating back nearly 50 years, from his perspective on duck hunting to the wildly successful fish stocking experiment the State conducted in the early 1970s. It's entitled "Clary Lake Water Level Impacts on Recreational Use" and is well worth reading. He will no doubt be reading it into the record at the public hearing. Thomas has taken an active interest in the lake level petition and has been a big help to me in ways, and I'd like to thank him publicly at this time. I've also received word that the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association has submitted a letter for the record in support of the Clary Lake water level petition but I haven't received a copy of it yet. I'll post it when I do.

• 22 June 2012:
  • The dam's gate has been closed! Ernie Shaw boated over this evening and told me that when he happened by the dam this morning, he noticed there was a lot less water than usual going out through the gate. I stopped up after supper and sure enough, the gate has been shut. I made a quick check of the lake level when I got home and it has only fallen 1/4" in 12 hours, less than 1/2 what I would have expected had the gate been open. This suggests to me that the gate was shut sometime mid-morning today. There is still a considerable amount of water leaking both through the gate and from cracks in the dam, but I guestimate overall water loss should be reduced by about 70%. This is a good thing.
    
    Closing the gate was the right thing to do. Perhaps now the new loon nest will stand a chance of success. And a little rain wouldn't hurt. We've only received 0.40" in the last 14 days.
     
• 21 June 2012:
  • Tim and Patricia Harkins are back and they have informed me that they have spotted a pair of nesting loons, this time over on the north shore in their more traditional nesting area. With the lake falling better than 3/4" per day and no rain in the forecast, this nest stands a good chance of being left high and dry unlike the last one which flooded. I'll be putting out the floating LOONS NESTING signs shortly.
    
    Update: Margaret and I went over and put out the floating LOONS NESTING signs around the entrance to the cove where the new loon nest is and I managed to get a few decent pictures (including the header above) without getting too close. This nest is much higher out of the water than the last one that flooded, suggesting the loons learned from that unfortunate experience. However, while they're likely safe should the lake rise, they're still at considerable risk of being stranded by low water. Time will tell.
    
    Not too sure just when they started sitting, but it must have been sometime within the last week. This would put the hatching date out around the 17th of July.

• 20 June 2012:
  • I got a call this morning from someone concerned at seeing a large tanker truck down at the state boat launch filling up with lake water. They were understandable concerned about water being removed from the lake at a time when we're already losing too much through the open gate and they were interested in whether this kind of pumping was allowed. Now I ain't no lawyer (phew!) but it is my understanding that the water in a Great Pond belongs to the people of the state of Maine and I know that Chapter 587  specifies how much water can be removed from a great pond (for example for farming purposes) without seriously impacting the lake, but I don't think it discusses necessarily who can remove it (recall that the state's Minimum Flows Recommendation suggests up to 2.7' of water can be removed from Clary). So anyways, I went over to check it out, more out of curiosity than anything. The tanker holds 8000 gallons and the driver told me it was destined to fill swimming pools. He said he'd be back to fill up a few more times.
    
    To put people's minds to rest, while 8000 gallons sounds like a lot of water, compared to how much water is in Clary Lake, it's an insignificant amount. Consider there are 7.48 gallons per cubic foot, 43,560 square feet in an acre, and 640+ acres in Clary Lake. So in the top 12" of the lake (when it's full) there are 7.48 x 43,560 x 640 = 208,530,432 gallons of water. In the top 1" of the lake there are 208,530,432 / 12 = 17,377,536 gallons of water. So a 1/16th of an inch drained out of the lake is 17,377,536 / 16 = 1,086,096 gallons. In other words, the tanker would have to fill up 135 times to drop the lake 1/16th of an inch. So in the overall scheme of things, a few tanker trucks full of water being removed doesn't really matter at all when we're already losing over 17 million gallons of water every day through the open gate. I must admit that when I first saw the tanker truck I was both annoyed and concerned and certainly understood how the caller had felt, but after doing the math, it's clearly not an issue.
     
  • I've been in touch with Debra Sanderson, our state representative. She's been looking into what is holding up the DEP's processing of the petition. As I now understand it, public hearings for water level petitions used to be held by the Board of Environmental Protection but these adjudicatory proceedings are now going to be held by the Department of Environmental Protection. The Department has had to come up with a new set of procedures for holding these hearings and these procedures are now being reviewed by the Attorney Generals office for completeness, suitability, and legal compliance with the law. When they've got all their ducks in a row they'll schedule a public hearing. They are aware of the urgency of the matter and the need to address this petition as soon as possible. I am grateful to Deb for her help in this matter.
     
  • Today is the Summer Solstice, that point when the sun in its orbit reaches its furthest point north of the celestial equator. This is the longest day of the year, and its all down hill from here folks, until the Winter Solstice in late December marking the shortest day. This date also marks the highest the sun gets in the sky at noon and the furthest north at sunrise and sunset. Ironically this is also the date when the sun is furthest from the earth in its elliptical orbit. I watch the sun's rising throughout the year and enjoy seeing the point at which it pops above the horizon move slowly north in spring and into summer and back again. From where I sit, this morning it rises almost directly in line with that radio tower up on 215. While we all know that the earth actually revolves around the sun, it is really simpler to think of the earth being in the center of the solar system and the mathematics are the same.
     
  • We're back at the 2.7' draw down that the state came up with for a maximum annual fluctuation as part of their minimum flows recommendation. There are pictures of the meadow area I took the last time we were here, in the Minimum Flows album. It is interesting to note that the accelerated rate at which the lake has been falling lately is due to water flowing out not just through the open gate but through the hole in the dam and the cracks as well. David Hodsdon estimates the leaks amount to between 10% to 15% of the total water loss. As the lake level drops these leaks will decrease. Another factor contributing to the rapid fall of the lake level you've seen in recent days because runoff has been reduced to a trickle. The last significant rain we received was back on June 9th. I expect we'll see the rate of fall start to drop off to around 3/4" per day in the next few days.

• 15 June 2012:
  • I've been playing with calendars lately and decided to set one up for the Clary Lake Association. I haven't decided how to link it into the site yet.. perhaps as a link up on the links bar. If you have a lake related event that you'd like put on the calendar, email me the details!
     
  • I had tentatively planned on holding an informational/planning meeting tomorrow afternoon at my house but a few things have come up this week and I haven't gotten all my preparations completed. With no public hearing date yet set, I've decided to cancel those plans for now. I'll reschedule it in a week or two.

• 11 June 2012:
  • The Summer 2012 newsletter is in the mail. No really.

• 10 June 2012:
  • So, if the dam owner is so concerned about the dam washing out because of water coursing through the hole, why doesn't he just plug the hole with something? Almost anything would serve to stop the water from eroding the concrete- a couple of old sheets or some grain bags stuffed in the hole would do it. I can only conclude that he wants the situation to worsen.

• 09 June 2012:
  • The Summer 2012 Newsletter is out, and posted on the Newsletters page. The print version will go in the mail perhaps Monday, or Tuesday depending upon the receipt of replacement ink cartridges in the mail. I was severely printer-challenged this time around- paper jams, clogged ink cartridges, etc., so I'll apologize in advance to those of you who get copies with lousy print and pictures. Oil well. If you're not happy with the one you get in the mail, you're welcome to download it and print it off yourself!

• 08 June 2012:
  • Arolyn Antognoni has been a fixture on Clary lake and a prominent member of the Clary Lake Association from the very beginning so it is with sadness that we note her passing, and our thoughts and prayers go out to her husband Bob and the family. Arolyn's funeral arrangements are being handled by Staples Funeral Home in Gardiner. Their website has links to the obituary, services, etc. A mass will be celebrated June 13 at 11:00 AM at St. Denis Church, Whitefield. Donations in her memory can be made to HealthReach Hospice, PO Box 825, Waterville, ME 04903, the Jefferson Historical Society, PO Box 302, Jefferson, ME 04348, or the Whitefield Historical Society, PO Box 176, Whitefield, ME 04353.
     
  • On the subject of Loons and nesting, Bob Antognoni gave me a picture the other day of a floating loon nest that he and Art Enos built back in 1999 and I thought it deserved to be posted on the web site. I have seen these floating nests being used by loons but I don't know if this one ever had any occupants. I remember seeing it for a few years before it finally sank. Does anyone know if it was ever used? Even under the best of water level conditions, fluctuation happens so perhaps we ought to give this a try again. Seems like it would be worth the effort. I've read a little about floating loon nests and they can markedly increase the breeding success rate of loons if they're properly located.

• 06 June 2012:
  • Arolyn Antognoni passed away last night, her whole family by her side. She will be missed.
     
  • I've uploaded a new web page for the Branch Pond Association.

• 04 June 2012:
  • The lake has risen over 11" as a result of the heavy rains of the last couple of days and is now sitting at the highest level of the year to date, only 2' below the top of the dam. However, the water is now high enough that it is coursing through the hole in the rotten concrete plug- the situation that Paul Kelley has been trying so hard to prevent from happening. This just goes to show you that it is hard to impossible to manage the water level with the existing gate mechanism.You can't effectively target a water level using the gate; you can only drain out water at the rate of an inch a day and as we've seen, rains can change all that very quickly. It's hit or miss, and mostly miss.
    
    I personally am not particularly concerned about the dam washing out as a result of this amount of high water though I'm certain that possibility is weighing heavily on the dam owner's mind long about now. On the other hand, if the high water were to rise even higher and remain high for a while, it might become a problem. The dam needs to be repaired. Now.

• 03 June 2012:
  • The loon nest is flooded, and has been abandoned. I went out this afternoon when it was still raining and saw the empty nest and one of the loons nearby, calling mournfully as only a loon can. Broke my heart.
    
    The lake has risen over 4" since yesterday morning, over 8" since the loons started sitting on their nest back on the 27th of May, and I knew this was going to happen; the correlation between rain fall and lake level rise is pretty simple math, but I'm still pretty much at a loss for words, which is unusual for me. This tragedy is directly the result of Paul Kelley's incompetent, reckless water level management conducted without any regard for the impact that wildly fluctuating water levels will have on wildlife habitat. Wildlife doesn't really care what the water level is, they'll adapt to whatever is there, but they have a really hard time with fluctuating water levels, as this incident shows. Because the lake level is so far below the top of the dam, the amount of upside risk- how much the lake can rise is- limited only by the amount of rain we get. If we were to get 10" of rain next week (not unheard of) the lake would rise over 3' and would be flowing over the top of the dam.
    
    This water level petition is all about establishing a stable water level, and that's all its ever been about. This loon nesting failure admirably serves to illustrate the importance of having a stable water level. If the dam was in good repair with a sluice on top set at the maximum water level as the Clary Lake Association has proposed doing for years, there would be very limited upside risk because average runoff would be handled by the sluice and excess runoff would just flow over the top of the dam. It really doesn't get any simpler than that.
     
• 01 June 2012:
  • I checked this afternoon and see that the dam's gate has been reopened. Whether this was done out of concern for the nesting loons or not really doesn't matter. I'll give Paul Kelley the benefit of the doubt. While we all want to see higher water levels going into summer, It was the right thing to do in light of the situation.
    
    However, pictures I took today show the nest now has only 3"-4" of free board and as we have just seen, an inch of rain can bring the lake up that much in only 24 hours. We're heading into an extended period of rain starting tomorrow and lasting 3-4 days at least with rainfall amounts expected to exceed 2". I don't think even with the gate fully open that enough water can be drained out in time to prevent the nest from flooding. Time will tell.
     
• I've added a new album Summer 2012.
   
• I've finally gotten around to uploading a couple of maps showing Clary Lake's water shed. I've added them to the Site Pictures album. One is from a 2011 Watershed Survey done by the DEP with Clary Lake Association assistance and the other is a Maine Office of GIS watershed layer on a Google Earth photograph. I'll update this with area calculations as soon as I've done them.

• 31 May 2012:
  • I'm keeping an eye on the loon nest closely as the lake has risen 4.2" as a result of the last storm (which dumped 0.98") and is now within 6" of flooding the nest. If the dam were in good repair with a properly sized sluice on the top of it to handle excess runoff, then more rain wouldn't be a problem- the excess water would flow harmlessly out the sluice. Now however, with the lake down 3', the water will continue to rise as long it keeps raining. And they're forecasting heavy rains for this weekend. It won't take much more rain to flood the loon out. Ironic isn't it? Here we were wishing the dam owner would close the gate so the lake would rise, and now we're hoping for the loon's sake that the lake doesn't rise too much too soon. Go figure.
     
  • The Clary Lake Water Level Crisis and Petition Initiative is about to get state-wide attention: I am being interviewed for a couple of newspaper articles, one for the Bangor Daily News and another one for the Lincoln County News. Not sure just when they'll appear in print, I'll post that information as soon as I have it.

• 29 May 2012:
  • The dam's gate has been partially closed as of sometime last Saturday, the 26 of May. Doug Kinney emailed me this morning to report that last Saturday he was driving by the dam and noticed the owner carrying the wheel used to open and close the gate. When he came by later he stopped to check and it appeared to him that the flow was reduced about 2/3 from what it had been. I just went up to check and I agree- the gate is now between 1/2 and perhaps 2/3 closed, and the flow is considerably reduced.
    
    While it's too soon to make accurate statements about current outflow rates, a quick look at recent water level measurements suggests the gate has been closed about 1/2 way: between Friday and Saturday the lake fell 0.84", between Saturday and Sunday it fell 0.96" but between Sunday and Monday it only fell 0.6". This is a good thing. Maybe the loons will stand a chance of raising a family this year after all. Many thanks to Doug for bringing this to my attention!
    
    UPDATE: According to Jack Holland who has spoken with Paul Kelley, the dam's gate is COMPLETELY CLOSED. If this is in fact the case, then it is leaking badly. And I wouldn't count on the gate being closed for long if we get much more rain. More about this as information becomes available.
     
  • It has come to my attention that there has been an initial meeting between Paul Kelley, Clary Lake Association representatives, and other interested parties for the purpose of discussing the transfer of ownership of the dam to the Association. While this is decidedly good news, there are a number of issues that need to be resolved and there is no guarantee that negotiations will be successful. In other words, I am cautiously optimistic but I hesitate to get my hopes up. I will not be taking part in nor am I privy to these negotiations so further announcements will come to you through official Clary Lake Association statements only. The petition of course continues.
     
• 28 May 2012:
  • We have nesting loons on the lake! I had been concerned that with the low water the loons would go elsewhere to raise a family, but I've seen them hanging around over here on the southwest shore recently, and this morning confirmed that they've got a nest under construction. This is not the traditional place for loons to nest on Clary lake- normally they prefer one of the coves on the north shore by the floating bog, but that area is high and dry this year because of the low water. Unfortunately, this current nest is doomed if the lake level continues to fall and there is no indication that the dam owner plans on shutting the gate any time soon. The nest is located in only about 6" of water and with the lake falling at the rate of about 3/4" per day, it will shortly be out of water and inaccessible to the loons and subject to 4 legged predators. We do have some rain in the forecast so it is possible, but extremely unlikely, that the lake will remain high enough, long enough, for the loons to hatch some eggs. They haven't laid any eggs yet and the gestation period is 28 to 30 days. The chances of them hatching successfully are slim to none.
    
    I ask that everyone please avoid this nesting area. While the loons chances of raising a family this year are slim, there's still a chance they'll succeed and I don't want people interfering with their chances. If you want to see the nest, you can see it from Route 126 just before you get to my house- there's a little turn out right by Francis Moulton's house. I have some "Caution: Loons Nesting" signs that Ed Grant gave me a few years ago that I'm going to put in the lake. Please respect them.

• 26 May 2012:
  • Margaret and I took a drive up to Branch Pond today to meet with Michael Wozniak and Brandon Kulik and talk about our respective water level problems. Branch Pond is a beautiful lake, a little over 300 acres in size or about 1/2 the size of Clary. There are numerous islands. Looks like a lovely place to go exploring in a canoe or kayak. Michael is the President of the Branch Pond Association and is heading up their water level petition initiative. Brandon Kulik is a fishery and aquatic scientist working at Kleinschmidt Associates, an engineering firm up in Pittsfield Maine. We compared notes, discussed strategies, and generally commiserated with each other about our respective situations, which are actually quite similar.
     
  • David Hodsdon, one of the Association's Volunteer Water Quality Monitors reports that Total Phosphorus (TP) is 0.023mg/liter. This is higher than normal, which is a bad thing. Normal is more like 0.018 to 0.019mg/liter. Speculating wildly, it is possible this is the result of storm water runoff with there being less water in the lake to dilute it. High levels of phosphorus is a primary cause of algae blooms. Here's a good site about Phosphorus in lake water: http://www.water-research.net/phosphate.htm.
     
  • Added a few more pictures to the Clary Images album this morning, a couple I took of a hummingbird hanging out at my feeder and a few from Brandon Kulik posted in the Branch pond album.

• 25 May 2012:
  • I thought it was time to change the banner. Unlike all the other banners on this site, the above picture was not taken by me but by a friend of mine, Jason Simonds of Jefferson, and it was not taken on or around Clary lake like all the rest but rather, in Damariscotta Mills below the fish ladder. The Alewife run is on, and the seagulls, ospreys, and eagles have been having a hay day. Hard to imagine that little branch is holding up both those birds! I saw the picture on facebook and asked Jason if I could use it here. Thanks Jason.

• 23 May 2012:
  • Arolyn Antognoni, who has participated in the Clary lake loon count since about forever, is not doing well. I visited with her last Sunday and Margaret visited her yesterday. She has been in declining health for a while yet remains in good spirits. She's so appreciative of friends stopping by to visit and enjoys reminiscing about her life on Clary Lake. Both Margaret and I were struck by the family love and good cheer and serenity that exudes from the Antognoni household. It is both heartwarming and an inspiration. We were out in our boat last weekend and saw the whole family...children and grandchildren scurrying around combing rocks and leaves from the beach, planting flowers and generally spreading love all around Aryolyn who was out enjoying the sun. A long-time Clary Lake shore resident, she loves the Lake and has been devoted to preserving and documenting the wondrous wildlife that we are so fortunate to have cohabiting with us. Prayers and drop-ins are in order, and most welcome. The Association is indebted to Arolyn for her love and enthusiasm for "communing" with Mother Nature, and sharing her conversation! God bless you Arolyn and Bob and family.
     
  • Added some more pictures this morning to the Clary Images album including a couple of some Lady Slippers sent to me by Bill Donovan and a couple from 1960 that Steve Giampetruzzi sent me some time ago, from an old family photo album. Thanks guys.
• 22 May 2012:
  • Michael Wozniak, President of the Branch Pond Association sent me some pictures of Branch Pond which I've posted in a Branch Pond photo album. Most of them were taken last November I believe, except for the ones showing lots of water which were taken a few years ago. The one that really sticks with me is the one showing the grounded sailboat (thumbnail at right). Of course, these are mostly of interest to Branch Pond lake shore owners but it IS interesting to see how similar our respective plights are.
     
• 20 May 2012:
  • Especially this time of year, fluctuating water levels whether rising or falling wreak havoc on wildlife trying to breed and raise a family. Bass are particularly susceptible to fluctuating water levels because they like to breed in shallow water. I spotted a bass this morning while I was down at the lake hydrating my dog that had scooped out a nest in the gravel and was busy defending it from other bass that were milling around the area. I got some pretty good pictures considering the circumstances, and I've added them to the Spring 2012 album. At one point a good sized smallmouth swam up and yanked on my dog's tail- I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it happen. I got a picture of it slowly approaching.... then it darted in and attacked before I could snap another picture. The fish escaped, and the dog was unhurt.

• 19 May 2012:
  • While the lake is still a couple of feet low, there's enough water to get around for the most part if you avoid the areas where rocks were sticking out just a few weeks ago. Margaret and I took a turn around the lake this afternoon and visited with a number of people- unlike a couple of weeks ago, we were able to pull up to their docks and chat for a while. There were quite a few people out and around fishing too. Nice to see folks taking advantage of a beautiful spring day. Tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer, if that's possible.

• 18 May 2012:
  • Took advantage of the calm lake surface this morning to make some comparison measurements using the benchmark at my home and the one I set previously over at David Hodsdon's place. David helped. We used a 4' builders level and a 6' folding ruler. The two water surface elevations checked to within 0.03 feet which is to say no appreciable error. I next checked the temporary bench mark I set over at the boat ramp and found that to be right on. I can safely say that this morning the lake surface was level.

• 16 May 2012:
  • Several things people have said or that I have read lately have caused me to question my understanding of the minimum flows recommendation that I've been ranting about for the past couple of weeks, so today I contacted David L. Courtemanch P.h.D., Director, Division of Environmental Assessment and now have it on good authority that I have been misinterpreting the State's minimum flows recommendations. This is good news!!!
    
    The minimum flows recommendations should not be interpreted to mean that we be required to provide outflows when there are no inflows i.e., we are not required to draw down the lake to maintain a specified minimum flow. The maximum annual fluctuation only pertains to discretionary draw downs (such as in the fall, to prevent ice damage) and the minimum flows are to be maintained when the dam is closed to fill the lake up again, so as not to dewater the stream below the dam. In other words, a stable water level where water-in equals water-out is just fine and if Mother Nature decides to dry up the stream below the dam for a while by not sending any rain for a while, well that's her prerogative and that is fine. That's life.
    
    Now, a few questions come to mind. First, why couldn't the minimum flows recommendation be written in such a way that reasonably intelligent people could read it and arrive at a correct interpretation? I'd be feeling badly long about now but for the fact that a number of people who could reasonably be expected to understand the recommendations are likely to be as surprised as I am. Second, when was someone going to tell me I had it all wrong? If I hadn't come to suspect that there might be something wrong or incomplete with my understanding of the material and gone digging, I'd still be laboring under the illusion that I knew what I was talking about.
    
    So where to from here? We're back on track. I'm going to continue work on a water level regime and proposed minimum flows recommendation of my own. Since we've already asked for and will be reiterating our desire for a water level of 12" below the top of the dam, the maximum annual fluctuation (the amount the dam owner is allowed to draw down the lake for whatever purpose) will have to be reduced as well to be sufficiently "protective of aquatic life standards for Class GPA waters."
     
  • I've posted the 12 May 2012 Association Board meeting minutes.

• 14 May 2012:
  • Several people have asked me who owns the land out in front of their property that has been exposed as the lake receded. The short answer is they do: people who own upland adjoining a Great Pond, unless their title is limited by deed, own down to the normal low water mark subject to a public easement and if they exist, flowage rights vested in others as well. I've also prepared a long answer: Great Ponds and Water Boundaries. By the way, I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice!
     
  • Carly Champine sent me a picture of their dock over on the north shore which they had put out when the lake was down 5'. Now that the lake has come up 2.5', their dock is a float! They're not the only ones with docks that need to be reset (and likely reset again) because of wildly fluctuating water levels. I've posted her picture and one of another dock off the Duncan Road. I've not even bothered to put my dock in, and I probably won't this year.

• 13 May 2012:
  • We received about 1.83" of rain in this most recent episode (May total: 2.23") and the lake has risen 8.04" since Wednesday morning, or 4.39" rise per inch of rain.It is important to note that since the gate is still open and water is flowing out of the lake at the rate of about 3/4" per day, had the gate been closed the lake would have risen an additional 3" for about 11" total. That works out to about 6" of rise for each inch of rain. This is close to the 7" of rise we got from the last storm which I wrote about a couple of days ago. If you will recall, we've concluded that how much the lake rises from a given amount of rain depends on the surface area of the lake at the time of the rainfall. Looking at the pictures I took yesterday, it is clear that the lake's surface area is substantially reduced from what it would be if it were full. Historically, when the lake is full or almost full we can expect 1" of rain to bring the lake up about 3". With the lake down 40" it appears we can expect 1" of rain to bring the lake up 6" (assuming the gate is closed) and with the lake down 60" we can expect that same 1" of rain to bring the lake up 7" to 8" (the gate was open during that event too).
    
    We can use this (and other) data to create a model of the lake's surface area and volume at different draw downs, similar to the Contour Report that the State used to derive their minimum flows recommendation, the difference being that our model will be based on empirical evidence rather than a hypothetical model divorced from reality. I will be using this and other data to design an alternative water level regime and minimum flows recommendation.
     
  • The Board of the Clary Lake Association met yesterday morning at the home of Ellis Percy and Joanne Tribby. I'll be posting the minutes when they've been prepared and approved. In the mean time I can tell you that:
     
    • The Annual meeting of the Clary Lake Association will be held on the first Saturday in August at the home of George and Margaret Fergusson. We had hoped to hold it before the public hearing to rally support for the petition but that would mean holding it in June, and that just isn't happening.
       
    • A Summer 2012 edition of the Association newsletter will be going out in mid-June.
       
    • Association membership is up almost 100% from last year's low! While this is awesome, we have high hopes for even more members as summer approaches.
       
    • Paul Kelley has initiated contact with Ellis Percy, President of the Association, to discuss the possibility of transferring ownership of the dam to the Association. Negotiations are underway. While this is encouraging news, it is really too soon to get excited as there are considerable obstacles to be overcome. We are nonetheless hopeful that the Association will end up owning the dam sooner rather than later.
       
• 12 May 2012:
  • I have maintained from the moment I saw them that the State's minimum flows recommendations with their 2.7' maximum annual fluctuation requirement were completely unreasonable and unacceptable because drawing the lake down that much would drain a substantial amount of Clary lake's valuable wetland habitat. With the lake sitting this weekend at precisely 2.7' below the top of the dam, I thought it was a great opportunity to go around the lake and take pictures to show people just what it looks like. So I did. I took a number of pictures from my boat, and even more from various vantage points around the lake including the marsh at the inlet on the southeast end of the lake by Route 126, and on Sue McKeen's shoreline adjoining stunning wading bird habitat. I've assembled these pictures into an album entitled Minimum Flows. I will be sending these pictures to my contact at the DEP and the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. I also took a series of pictures over at the Floge property and turned them into yet another panorama photograph. If ever there was proof that a picture is worth a thousand words, this is it.
     
• 11 May 2012:
  • I headed out this afternoon in my boat to document the waterlevel because at 32.76" below the top of the dam, it's now less than half an inch from the "annual maximum fluctuation" of 2.7' called for in the State's minimum flows recommendations. In other words, if the State imposes a water level order conforming with these minimum flow recommendations, we can expect this water level every year going forward. That the water level is quite low is obvious just by looking at the shoreline anywhere around the lake. However, I was particularly interested in documenting the amount of water up in the marsh but the strong north wind prevented me from navigating my boat up into the channel area. I'll head up there this weekend and get some pictures. I did get some pictures of some docks over on the north shore off Duncan road that are actually now floats since the water has risen. I'll post pictures later this weekend.
    
    Extreme water level flucutations such as we've seen this spring are very hard on nesting wildlife. Bird nests and muskrat houses get flooded and fish spawning is disrupted. The loons don't know whether they're coming or going. Wildlife doesn't really care where the water level is, as long as it's stable.
     
  • I have been corresponding with a couple of people involved in a water level petition on Branch Pond in Palermo, the head waters of the West Branch of the Sheepscot river. Their petition was submitted to DEP back in 2008. It was put on hold for 3 years to give the dam owner time to effect repairs. They're now on track for a long-awaited public hearing sometime this summer. Since the Branch Pond Association doesn't have a web site, I've offered them some space on our site.  The Branch Pond Association pages can be accessed the following URL:
    
    http://www.clarylake.org/branchpond/
    
    I'll also be adding a link to the navigation links at the top of our pages, and on the home page. There isn't anything there yet, but that will change.
     
• 10 May 2012:
  • I will be very interested in how much the lake comes up from this most recent rain. I've been scratching my head over the 24" rise we got back in late April from only 3.4" of rain- a rise of 7" for every inch of rain. My initial explanation was that the rain came down so fast that more ran off into the lake as opposed to soaking into the ground. David Hodsdon however point out that the rain came down over about 30 hours, which wasn't that fast really, and he has come up with an alternate explanation that at first glance didn't make a lot of sense to me but upon further reflection I think likely explains that rise rather well.
    
    Typically the lake rises about 3" for every inch of rain we receive, when the lake is full or nearly full. This most recent rain event occurred when the lake level was over 60" below the top of the dam. Obviously, with the lake down 60" the surface area of the lake (and hence it's volume) is going to be less- considerably less. With less surface area, the same amount of runoff is going to bring about a greater rise in water level. David calculates that with the lake down 60" that the volume of the lake is about 38% of the volume when the lake is full (this does NOT agree with the Department's mimimum flows recommendations contour report by an order of magnitude).
    
    If this isn't making sense yet, imagine 2 water glasses, one 2" in diameter and the other 4" in diameter. Pour a cup of water into each glass. In which glass is the water going to rise the highest? Obviously, the water will rise higher in the glass with the smaller diameter. This is just common sense. So don't think of the lake as a glass with straight parallel sides from bottom to top where adding a constant amount of water brings about a correspondingly constant rise in water level, think of it as a series of cylinders of increasing diameter stacked on top of each other such that as the height of the water increases, the surface area increases. This explains how 3.4" of rain could bring about a 24" rise in the water level when the lake is very low, but only bring the lake up 9" to 12" when the lake is nearly full.
     
• 08 May 2012:
  • It is a little bit of a mystery about those signs... nobody seems to know who put them up.
     
• 07 May 2012:
  • The Clary Lake Association Board meeting announced below has been rescheduled to 11 am Saturday morning to better accommodate everyone's schedule. All other details the same.
     
  • A Clary Lake Association Board meeting has been scheduled for this coming Saturday, 12 May 2012 at 3pm at the home of Ellis Percy. There is a lot on the agenda including when to hold the CLA annual meeting. Initially we had planned on holding the meeting before the public hearing to marshal forces and get everyone fired up. With the public hearing now scheduled for early July, it appears we'll be holding the annual meeting around it's traditional time in early August. This means I will be calling a separate meeting of Petitioners and other interested parties sometime in mid to late-June with the date, time, and place to be announced. Stay tuned!
     
  • Nothing like Community Activism! On my way to town this morning I saw some signs had been put up on the road side by Alden Boynton's field. I think that Alden would approve. I sure do.
     
• 03 May 2012:
  • I've had a chance to finish readinge the Aquafortis Associates LLC letter sent to DEP in response to their request for information about Aquafortis Associates' interest in the dam and mill property. I had originally intended to refrain from comment but am compelled to make a few remarks before moving on. I am relieved to learn that Aquafortis Associates LLC does not own or operate the dam (I didn't think they did, but it's nice to have my suspicions confirmed) and that Paul Kelley is apparently operating the dam with their approval since Aquafortis Associates actually owns the water rights. I do wonder why it took 5 pages of extremely difficult to read and understand language to convey that simple message. I am also surprised to learn that I am a member of a group of people around the lake who are "highly privileged lakefront homeowners" as I always thought of myself as a rather ordinary, hard working person, struggling to make a living just like everyone else. Lakefront homeowner yes, but privileged?
    
    I am also surprised that the letter contained such vitriolic language towards us, the petitioners, given that Aquafortis Associates doesn't know me from a hole in the wall and has no apparent interest or liability associated with this lake level petition or it's outcome. In fact, as downstream land owners, they stand to benefit greatly from a repaired, properly maintained, and properly operated dam. You would think they should be in favor of our petition initiative. So I don't get it. I'm left wondering who really wrote this missive- some nameless Aquafortis Associates LLC representative as we would be led to believe, or Paul Kelley himself:?
     
  • Stephen Viti sent me several pictures which I've uploaded to the Clary Images album. Thanks Steve!
     
  • I've just posted the Invasive Plant Patrol workshop descriptions and instructions for signing up for them over on the IPP program page. Registration deadline for the Introductory Workshop is June 12th and for the Field Workshop by July 9th. I guess I'll also be sending an email around to all Clary Lake Shore Owners. This is a great opportunity to educate yourself, take an active role in protecting Clary Lake, and best of all, it's FREE!
     
• 02 May 2012:
  • I have posted the Aquafortis Associates LLC response to the Department's 02 April 2012 request for information, received by the DEP today, and forwarded to me by email a little while ago. Presented without comment. I've decided that receipt of this document does not warrant another petition update email.
     
  • As an afterthought and to provide more information for people considering testifying at the public hearing, I've posted the State's "Water Levels Booklet" under the brand new Reference Materials section. Most interesting is a Q&A section about water levels petitions and a list of relevant legislation pertaining to dams. I don't know why I didn't post this sooner.
     
• 01 May 2012:
  • A lot of updates on the Lake Level Petition News page today! They're all marked with a New! tag and will be until they're not. I have posted my response to the Department of Environmental Assessment's Minimum Flows Recommendation under the Supplementary Petition Materials section. The Minimum Flows Recommendation is now available as 3 separate files by the way, instead of the 2+ megabyte scan I made. Making it more manageable is a good thing: it's a very important document and likely the principal around which this whole petition will revolve. Also I've posted DEP's rules for determining water levels and minimum flows, ominously titled "Chapter 587" (another must-read), all posted under Department Communications. Enough has happened in the last 24 hours to trigger Yet Another Petition Update email.
     
  • I received word from Beth Callahan today that they're now proceeding post-haste towards scheduling the public hearings which I suppose is the next best thing to actually scheduling the public hearings :) Ours will likely be in early July- exact date, time, and place to be announced as soon as possible. Beth Callahan sent me the state laws regarding Public Hearings and the Water Level Law which dictate not only how a hearing is run and how one testifies, but the 8 categories of information on which one can testify. Sounds like fun, I can't wait.
     
• 29 April 2012:
  • I finally got around to running a short level loop yesterday between the GPS control point in David Hodsdon's driveway to drill hole we set in the top of a large boulder on the shore. This gives David a new bench mark to use, tied into the GPS control survey I performed last December. The drill hole has a NAVD88 elevation of 153.38' or 2.74' above the elevation of the top of the dam (150.64'). It turns out his old benchmark referencing the top of the dam was just a little over 2" low, hardly worth getting excited about. However, we're now on the same datum and this new benchmark allows him to determine absolute elevations as well as relative measurements above or below the top of the dam. David has been recording water level elevations off and on for a number of years now, providing a valuable historical record of water level fluctuations. He's going to continue taking independent measurements. I'll also be using this new benchmark to extend the control network around the lake, to support my on-going lake mapping initiative. It's what I do. Carpenters build things, surveyors map things.
     
• 27 April 2012:
  • Added some pictures to the Clary Lake and Clary Images albums including some pictures of a strange looking plant stalk up in the meadow, spotted by Maryjane Rowland back on the 15th of April. She didn't know what they were, and I sure didn't know. Beth Callahan didn't know either but she found out: they're Yellow Pond Lily roots. So in preparation for posting the pictures on the site, I did a little research. These are the rhizomes of the Yellow Pond Lily. In the spring new growth emerges from the end of these roots, adding another section to the rhizome, which sprouts roots at the end and along it's length. Those are leaf stem scars that give it that funny appearance. These can get quite long. These rhizomes are supposed to be buried deeply in the mud but they have been exposed as a result of erosion, or perhaps they were frost-heaved out of the mud due to the lack of water cover. It is not clear if these are going to survive being exposed like this. Now as it turns out, there is one species of Yellow Pond Lily variety (Nuphar Advena) in Maine that are rare and considered imperiled (because of their rarity) and have only been documented as present in 2 towns, in Lincoln County and Sagadahoc county. The Maine Department of Conservation has a Rare Plant Fact Sheet on them. Now I can't tell them apart from memory, but it is likely these pictures are of Nuphar variegata which is common. I'm looking into this. I'd just love to find out there's an endangered species on Clary Lake besides Unhappy Lake Shore Owners.
    
    Update: According to Roberta Hill of the VLMP: "Great photo of the rhizomes.  These things can be pretty frightening when one stumbles up them for the first time!  And yes. These are definitely N. variegata rhizomes.  If they were N. advena, the leaf scars would be more oval in shape (as oppose to somewhat triangular)."
     
  • On my way to town this morning I noticed that the water is within less than 6" of reaching the hole in the dam, and leaks have appeared near the bottom of the dam to the right of the gate, this with the water level at about 37" below the top of the dam.
     
• 26 April 2012:
  • I added I've added portions of the a lake level order for Sabattus Pond under Department Communications on the Lake Level Petition News page. I can't say it's readily comparable in any way to Clary Lake but it does give some insight into how the DEP approaches certain problems and the lengths they will go to address those problems. It's 26 pages and 1.9 megabytes. You're forgiven if you decline to download and read this document.
     
  • Ever since starting water level measurements last December, I've been downloading precipitation data from the Weather Underground's Augusta Airport weather station. David Hodsdon has recently installed a La Crosse wireless Rain Monitor and he's going to be supplying me with local precipitation data going forward. I'm thrilled! I've plugged in his data starting on 08 April 2012 with the result that the April total to date has dropped by 0.39" and now stands at 3.61". There's nothing like local data.

• 25 April 2012:
  • I've added 2 more documents under Department Communications on the Lake Level Petition News page: the most recent water level order for China Lake, and a document describing the New England Flow Policy used to come up with the Minimum Flows recommendations that I posted yesterday. I will provide commentary when I've had a chance to fully review this material. I *strongly* suggest eveyone read this stuff, as hard as that may be at times, as these documents represent a good deal of the information the DEP will use in preparing a lake level order for Clary Lake.
     
  • Petition Update #6 sent.
     
• 24 April 2012:
  • As of early this morning the lake has come up 1.2' since the storm started and it isn't done rising. We've received 3.88" of rain so far and a little more is likely over the next few days. I expect the lake will continue to rise for a couple of days as well. So far, each inch of rain has brought the lake up 3.7" and I expect the final multiplier will be on the order of 4, or 4.5. This is a larger multiplier than expected and is the result of the rain coming down so quickly.
     
  • Added some pictures contributed by Trudi Hodgkins to the Clary Images album including an absolutely gorgeous sunrise. Thank you Trudi!
     
  • I've received an anticipated package of material from Beth Callahan including 4 preliminary agency comments, 2 sample lake level orders (China Lake and Sabattus Pond) and some other stuff of lesser interest. I've hastily scanned and posted them on the Lake Level Petition News page. Sorry for the quality of the scans, but the originals weren't great. I'll try and make them better when I have more time.
     
• 23 April 2012:
  • Boy did it rain :) 3.18" since the storm started, according to the Augusta Airport weather station (slightly less according to Tim Chase's Grand Army Weather station). So far (and I've checked twice today) the lake has come up close to 9" and it's not done rising- peak runoff is typically 24 hours after the storm. I expected 3" of rain would bring the lake up about 9" total but it looks like the speed with which the rain fell caused more to run off. If it had rained 3 inches over the course of a week or so (which would be more normal, eh?) more of it would have soaked into the ground and less run off. So I expect a bigger rise from this storm- a foot or more. It's a certainly a nice boost to the lake, but it is still a dangerous place to boat and regrettably, with the gate still open, all this water will have drained away completely in less than 3 weeks.
     
  • By the way, it occurred to me today while I was out hauling my dry dock (which was no longer dry) and boat (which was flooding) further up the shore, that it would behoove us all to take advantage of this once in a lifetime low water opportunity to get out there and clean up those rocks, the  broken glass, the old tires and what have you that has rested quietly under 5' of water all these years, because once the Clary Lake Association gets hold of the dam and repairs it, you're not going to see water levels like this again, ever. That's a promise. Now according to the National Resource Protection Act's Permit By Rule standards, such activities as shoreline stabilization using vegetation or riprap and movement of rocks and vegetation are activities that you can obtain a permit to do simply by "following the rules." Now I'm no expert, but as I understand it, anything you want to do on your shoreline that you can do with your hands or with hand tools is allowed. So if you wanted to get rid of some rocks and clean up your swimming area a little bit, if you can accomplish it with a crow bar, shovel, and wheel barrow then it is OK. Of course, Permit By Rule requires a notification form with site map to be sent to the DEP along with a $50 application fee. Or you can just do what I'm going to do and just go ahead and move those rocks and pick up that garbage. By hand. With a crow bar. And wheel barrow.
    
    I mean, if Paul Kelley can drain 5' of water out of the lake, destroy 350 acres of wildlife habitat, compromise our pond frontage, deprive us of lake access and ruin our plans for the boating season, with complete impunity... why should anyone complain about someone moving a few rocks?

• 22 April 2012:
  • I've hastily added a directory of Newspaper Clippings to the site and linked it into the Lake Level Petition News page- it's just a directory listing for now and will probably remain such. The articles are all from the Lincoln County News from last fall and this past winter.

• • No water level chart update today because of the rain and wind. I need calm seas to make the measurements.
     
• 21 April 2012:
  • I have noticed a slight but measurable slowing of the rate of fall of the water level over the past month, which is to be expected as the lake nears it's lowest level. It's too early to project how low it could get based on this observation but if I had to make a wild guess I'd say 72" below the top of the dam (6') was a reasonable lower limit. This is about a foot higher than the ~7' figure that I've arrived at by other means, but I have several pieces of new information to factor in. First is the discovery of the photograph Steve Giampetruzzi sent me the other day showing the lake in July 1961, the year Chester Chase drew down the water level. The other the realization that there is an obstruction of some sort blocking the bottom 1/3 or so of the pipe through the dam (see thumbnail at right) that will limit the amount the water can fall. What I don't know for certain is the amount of the gradient between the lake level and the water level at the dam but assuming ~4" + another 8" down to the obstruction, whatever it is, I'd expect at most another 12" drop from our current level. That would make the lower limit approximately 72" to 78" (6' to 6.5') below the top of the dam, rather than the 7' to 7.5' that I had arrived at previously.
    
    And at 62", we're almost there. In a really dry year we might approach 7' below the top of the dam, in a wet year, perhaps 5' would be more likely. If Paul kelly leaves the dam open this spring (and why would he close it? What's he got to gain?) we may find that lower limit, and we can stop guessing.
     
  • Sent out Petition Update #5 this evening.
     
• 20 April 2012:
  • While Beth Callahan and I were up at the northwest end of the lake looking over the channel entrance and marsh area, I took a series of photographs in an attempt to make a 360° panorama. I've tried this before and it never came out well but this time the results are rather stunning if I do say so myself. If you can't get up there yourself to look around, these pictures are a lot like being there. To make this panorama, I stitched together 10 separate overlapping pictures. There are 3, a large one (1.1 megabytes) and a smaller one (345kb). I've also linked them into the Pictures page. Yes, that's Beth Callahan taking her own pictures.
    
    It has been pointed out that my 360° panorama is actually more like a 375° panorama in that it wraps completely around the horizon, and then some. This was purely oversight on my part, and not a deliberate attempt to make the horizon look bigger than it really is.
     
• 19 April 2012:
  • I took Beth Callahan, the DEP staff person in charge of our petition, around the lake for a tour of the sites today. Beth is a Project Manager with the Division of Land Resource Regulation at the Department of Environmental Protection. This site visit had been planned for some time but not scheduled until just the other day. She had been out mid-winter to look at the dam and boat launch but hadn't seen the lake since ice out. I had originally planned on taking her around in my boat, but of course that didn't happen, one can't get any closer than a few hundred feet to shore without risking running aground, and sometimes not even that close is safe. So I drove her around in my car, starting with my own shoreline/swamp/brook area over by the Jefferson town line, then over to the State boat launch. Next we drove down the Duncan Road to look a the nice new beach those folks have. A few people over there have their floats out.
    
    Next we headed over to Mosquito Lane and parked in Sue McKeen's yard and from there, wandered a ways out into the meadow towards Clarks Meadow Brook to look at the Significant Wading Bird Habitat (which is pretty much high and dry, so not a lot of wading going on) before heading over to take a look at the dam. After viewing the dam, mill pond, and railroad abutment, we drove out through the Floge's property to get deep into the meadow area. Finally, we parked down at the very end of Hornpout Lane and walked up the shore line to the beginning of the channel where we could see over to the bog, and downstream towards the dam. We both took lots of pictures and saw a whole lot of soil erosion and sedimentation, compromised public access issues, devastated wildlife habitat, and not surprisingly, not a lot of wildlife, of any kind. Clary Lake's marshes and meadows are dead zones, pretty much devoid of plant and animal life. I've added a half dozen pictures from this site visit to the Spring 2012 album.

• • 51 Years Ago and Today: Steven Giampetruzzi sent me a picture from their family archive showing the area in front of the so-called "middle cottage" or "red cottage" just west of what is now Arolyn and Robert Antognoni's home. The picture is dated July 1961 and shows the extent of the lake draw down that year. You've heard me talk about that drawdown- I always  thought it was in 1960 but apparently it was the next year which would have made me 8 years old. I remember the draw down clearly, I was just off by one year. My most vivid memory is riding in a canoe down the channel to the dam with my father and I think, David Hodsdon. The channel was quite narrow, much as it is today, and lined with large turtles nose-to-tail along much of it's length.
    
    So I printed a copy of the picture and went over this afternoon and tried to find the location from which the 1961 photograph was made so I could take a "51 years later" photograph for comparison. Well it took a while but the result is worth it! A number of the trees in the 1961 photograph are clearly visible in the picture I took today and I was able to use some of these to help get oriented. I have maintained all along that the draw down I remember as a child was lower than what is occurring today, but as it turns out, not quite as much lower as I had thought. A careful comparison of the two photographs side by side shows that the 1961 drawdown was at most 1 foot lower than the current level of 62" below the top of the dam. There's also no indication that the 1961 photograph shows the lake at it's lowest possible level, though it's clearly close to the bottom. The picture was taken in July, it might have fallen further as the summer progressed.
     
• 18 April 2012:
  • I finally got around to processing some photographs I took this past winter up in the meadow. I built this Marsh Panorama from 6 photographs covering about 230° of horizon. Sometimes these panoramas come out lousy. This one came out rather well, though large. It was pretty desolate out there, even for winter. And the moon. Notice the moon?
     
  • Folks around the lake are gearing up for the 2012 boating season on Clary Lake! Yesterday, David Knight put in his dock! I stopped by to see it and remarked that I thought the gang plank was a little short but David assured me that with a running start, he can still make it into the water though he is going to need a longer rope to tie up his boat. Then while we were standing there talking, Ann Holland came paddling around the point in her kayak, headed for home. Apparently tired, she got out and walked the rest of the way, dragging her kayak behind her.Then today, Jack Holland put his boat in the lake, over at the State boat launch. He said it was a little challenging because he had to drag it off the trailer into the water, and then he had to drag it 75' out into the lake over barely submerged rocks before there was enough water to float it with him in it. Thank goodness I'm no longer the only  idiot  person with a motor boat on the lake.
     
• 17 April 2012:
  • I've been researching what dams might have existed on Clary stream (Pleasant Pond stream) before Henry Clary built the existing dam sometime around 1900. According to David Chase's Maine Thing web site, there have been 3 dams or mill ponds located on the stream running out of Clary Lake back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. There is evidence of an old foundation and possible mill pond on the stream below the existing mill. There is no real evidence that there was ever a dam in the location of the current dam before Henry Clary's time, but it's certainly possible. If anyone knows anything about this, I'd love to hear from you.
    
    In the process of researching this matter in an attempt to further refine my estimate of how low the lake can get, I ran across an 1893 USGS 7.5' topographic map showing Clary lake and it looks to me that at that time, there was no dam at the current location. The evidence is compelling, starting with the stated elevation of 145' (datum Mean Sea Level), and the fact that only streams are shown on the northwest and southeast ends of the lake. Mean Sea Level has changed a little since 1893 (up about 8") and the newer datum adjustments have added almost a foot to that. This agrees roughly with the 1954 NGS elevation for the lake of 149 and suggests the 1893 elevation is high by 1-2 feet in today's measurements. In other words, using todays datum the 1893 elevation of the lake would be more like 143' to 144'. Today we're at 145.6 which suggests the lake can fall another 1' to 2', to it's pre-dam level. This agrees with estimates I've come up with based on other evidence: that the existing dam has raised the lake level approximately 7' and we're currently down 5'.

• 16 April 2012:
  • The water level has officially passed 5 feet below the top of the dam and is effectively at the low of the year reached back in mid-February, and several inches lower than it got during all of 2011. I suppose that qualifies as news. And with no rain in sight, it has no where to go but down. How low it gets this year depends on how much rain we get. So far, 2012 is shaping up to be a VERY DRY YEAR. Of course this could all change if Paul Kelley decides to close the gate but if he was going to shut it he'd have done so by now.
     
  • I had to run to Jefferson this morning and decided to stop by the State boat launch to see what 5' below the top of the dam looked like. Well not surprisingly it's clearly unusable for anything but carry-in traffic and has been for a long time, and I have pictures to prove it. I more or less knew what to expect, but still I wasn't prepared for all the rocks sticking out of the water.
     
  • With the lake down over 60" today, I decided to take advantage of a day off to further document the impact of this draw down with some pictures at the dam. I've added 5 pictures to the Spring 2012 album. Using comparative measurements of a picture I took of the upstream face of the dam, I was able to measure the distance from the top of the dam to the surface of the water and found it to be 64" (picture at right). This means there is a 4" gradient between the surface of the lake and the surface of the water at the dam. This is about what would be expected, as water only flows down hill. I was also quite surprised when looking at the Narrow Gauge Railroad abutment to see the remains of a sand bag coffer dam dating back to 1996 when Art Enos made repairs to the dam after buying it from Chester Chase. It's only visible now because the water is so low. I was also able to take a picture showing the deteriorating concrete plug in the center of the dam and the hole that goes all the way through the dam. I was also distressed to see how much sediment is going into the Sheepscot River, an Outstanding River Segment protected by State Law. The lake water is turbid as a result of silt being stirred up by wave action, but a lot of additional silt and sediment is being scoured from the channel and carried down stream to the dam. The water in the mill pond looked like regular coffee- clearly visible in some of the photographs. This can't make the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association very happy.
     
• 15 April 2012:
  • I added 5 pictures to the Spring 2012 album that Jack Holland took today on his first foray of the year into the channel. Jack had this to say about his venture:
    
    "Some pictures from today, Sunday 4/15/12  of the "stream" still flowing towards the dam. Very narrow in spots. From what i could tell, the water level could still drop another 2 feet by the depth I saw in the stream. Plenty of exposed rocks, so if you venture out on the lake, boaters beware!!!!"
    
    I also agree that the lake could drop another 2' from where it is today, maybe a little more, judging from my own investigations which I wrote about back on 22 March 2012. My friends Rob & Maryjane Rowland also launched their kayak and went down the channel almost to the dam this morning. They stopped in to visit on their return and their account of their trip was similar to Jack's. Lots of rocks, and very little wildlife sighted as there is no nesting habitat or forage for ducks up in the meadow. I've also posted 3 of their photos to the Spring 2012. Thanks for the pictures!

• 14 April 2012:
  • I didn't start water level measurements until late last December, 18 December 2011 to be exact but I did make an accurate estimate of the water level at the dam on 20 November 2011 based on comparative measurements of a digital photograph of the dam and building I took on that date (this photograph is included in Appendix A of the Petition Submission). At that time I found the water level to be ~58" below the top of the dam. I don't know if the level fell significantly lower than that before I started accurate measurements but I suspect not: we received 1.30" of rain between the 20th and the end of November and another 1.45" in early December, a total of 2.75" of rain. This brought the lake level up approximately 14" (5x multiplier, about what would be expected with saturated soils) to 44.4" below the top of the dam on 18 December 2011 when I commenced measurements. Therefore I estimate that the lowest level the lake likely reached last year was about 58" below the top of the dam in late November.
    
    Today, at 59.16" below the top of the dam, we have already surpassed last year's maximum low water level by over 1" and are within less than 2" of the mid-winter low of 60.72" (which nobody noticed because the lake was frozen). At the rate the lake is falling (0.03'-0.04' per day) we'll surpass that low in 4 days. And then? The dam is still wide open. How low will it get before the DEP takes action? We can do nothing but wait, and I don't wait well.
     
• 13 April 2012:
  • I took my first boat ride since March 23rd. The lake has fallen nearly 1 foot and receded about 4' since then and my boat was sitting high and dry on it's 2x4 ways. Launching the boat was lot like work. Once I got the boat off the ways it was sitting in only 3" of water and I had to drag it 20' out into the lake before there was enough water to float it, and then I had to row it another 50' out before I could lower my motor, start it up, and cautiously back away from the shore.
    
    So much of the water around the edges of Clary Lake is only 6'-8' deep when the lake is full. Take 5' of water out of the lake and suddenly there are vast areas near the shore where the water is at most a foot or two deep. All around the lake there are rocks sticking out of the water, and many more lurking just below the surface. Boating is treacherous. Even a few hundred feet from shore you don't really know if the water is deep enough.
    
    I got to within about three hundred yards of the boat launch before I turned around and headed back. I know from experience that the water at that end of the lake around the boat launch is only a couple of feet deep now and I didn't want to hit bottom. I stopped and visited with Steven Giampetruzzi who was out sitting on his dock. He'd been hooking up his camp water line and had to move it much further out into the lake than it was last year. At that, it is in only 2' of water and will need to be moved further out before long. The water was only 6" deep at the end of his dock- plenty for his kayak but not really enough for my boat. I was able to row in and tie up for a while but it took some pushing and shoving to get my boat out of the muck and floating again.
    
    I made it home without incident and managed to haul my boat out on a small stretch of sand beach between rock beds. I didn't see any other boats on the lake today, despite it being the first really nice day we've had for weeks. We'll see who ventures out this weekend- it's supposed to be beautiful weather.
    
    Boating this summer is going to be a real challenge.
     
• 12 April 2012:
  • A number of people have told me recently that they do not intend to put their boats in the lake this year due to low water conditions. I certainly understand that decision. The risk of ruining your motor on rocks is much greater with the lake down almost 5' and most of us with docks are finding there just isn't enough water to float them. If you do put your boat in, where are you going to tie it up? I've rigged up a dry dock of sorts with a log and a couple of 2x4 ways to haul my 14' Starcraft up on. As the water falls, I just drag the log further out into the lake. It works, but it's hardly convenient.

• 11 April 2012:
  • Thanks to Jack Holland for submitting some photos for the Clary Images album. Still coming up with captions for some of them. If you send in pictures, include a little info about them.

• 06 April 2012:
  • Added 4 photographs to the Spring 2012 album showing another stone wall built before there was a dam. While I was out ramming around I ran into Tom Hayes, Whitefield Tax Assessor looking over the situation. Apparently a number of people have contacted the town about their property assessments and complaining about a lack of water on their water front. Apparently the town is investigating. That said, I wouldn't expect any huge tax abatement on your property taxes any time soon.

• • A little later in the afternoon I was heading to Jefferson and spied a fox in the blueberry field across from the Highland Cemetery trotting up from the lake. I stopped to take a picture, half expecting the fox to run right off. Instead, it paused a moment to ponder me, giving me a chance to get a picture before it ran off. I've added the picture to the Clary Images album. Looking forward to picture submissions from other Clary lake residents!

• 05 April 2012:
  • Added a Membership page with information about joining the Association and signing up for our mailing list. Most of this information was available before but you had to dig for it. Haven't updated the all the link tables but I'll get around to it. Need to flesh it out with more reasons why joining the Association is a good idea and why NOW is a good time to do it.

• 04 April 2012:
  • The Lake Level Petition News page has been updated with the addition of a copy of a letter I received today addressed to Aquafortis Associates LLC from the DEP. Those of you who have read the petition materials know that the Registered Agent for Aquafortis Associates LLC is none other than Mr. Paul Kelley himself. I'll refrain from further comment at this time.

• • Repaired a broken link on this news page to the awesome-but-large Composite Marsh Photograph.. Sorry about that. People finding broken links, please bring them to my attention! I'm only an email away.

• 02 April 2012: 
  • Total precipitation for March was a paltry 1.28" which along with melting snow and liberated ground water runoff brought the lake up an insignificant 9.28". We started the month with the lake at an elevation of 145.76', rose marginally peaking at 146.49' on 24 March, and then ended the month down marginally from the peak at 146.33. We're now down to146.26' or 52.56" below the top of the dam.

• 28 March 2012:
  • It's been windy on Clary Lake this week which has prevented me from measuring the lake level for a few days. Got out this afternoon and determined that the rain we received the other day had a negligible effect on the water level because the ground is no longer frozen and much of the water that was running off this winter is now soaking into the ground.
     
  • It turns out that Bing has it all over Google Maps in the high resolution photography department. Not only are the photos of higher resolution, but they're also relatively current. Bing lacks the tools that Google Maps and Google Earth include, but if you're clever you can grab the photos and manipulate them. I made this high resolution composite photo of the extensive marsh area by stitching together 8 separate photos. I defy you to find the seams. Warning: the file is 1.2 megabytes. I've linked to this composite photo on the home page but haven't figured out quite how to present it.Yet.

• 23 March 2012:
  • I met with Clary Lake Association President Ellis Percy yesterday to discuss various lake issues including the difficulty of using the State boat launch due to low water and the hazardous  low water conditions around the lake. Traditionally the Association has marked water hazards but this year there are a lot more to be concerned about. We also think its a good idea to put up a sign at the boat launch warning boaters of the hazardous low water conditions they will encounter. We're working on getting this done as soon as possible.

• • The Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP) has sent around a tentative schedule for their Invasive Plant Patrol workshops for this summer. These workshops consist of an introductory workshop and a field workshop and are being co-hosted by the Clary Lake Association. See the IPP page for more information.

• 22 March 2012:
  • I took another spin around the lake today, this time equipped with an electric trolling motor for navigating shallow water areas. I headed up to the northwest end of the lake to survey the entrance to the channel. I was looking for the entrance to the meadow, the place where the lake funnels down to a channel- and the shallowest spot for the purpose of determining just how low the lake can go. I figured that the so-called berm or ridge people have talked about had to be close to the lake based on general topography.
    
    What I found was surprising: at the very entrance to the channel, where the bog ends and the meadow begins, the water was only about 3' deep. I crossed back and forth several times to be sure I had the channel entrance located. To put this in terms everyone can understand: if the dam were to be removed, (or left open indefinitely) the lake could fall roughly another 3'-3.5' lower from where it is today, for a total drop of about 7'-7.5' below the top of the dam. This maximum drop could only occur during a particularly dry season as any significant amount of rainfall would offset the water flowing out through the dam, bringing the lake into equilibrium at some level higher than the minimum elevation. This figure jives with my previous estimate of 6'-8' drop based on the height of the dam, the location and elevation of various stone walls around the lake that extend well into the water (clearly built before there was a dam), and my own recollections of the 1960 draw down which I distinctly recall being lower than what we saw last fall and this past winter.
    
    In a year with more or less normal rainfall I think we could expect the lake to bottom out around 5.5' to 6' below the top of the dam, or roughly another 1.5' to 2' lower than it is now. In other words, it could have gotten worse last fall.
    
    I finished my boat trip without incident.
     
  • I uploaded a bunch of new pictures today including a few from Daniel Burns. Of particular interest are photos of a beaver lodge up in Clary meadow, one from August 2010 showing it occupied (photo by me) and one February 2012 showing it abandoned (photo by Daniel). How discouraging. And imagine how the beaver feels.

• 21 March 2012: 
  • The ice is officially OUT! While ice out is more likely to occur in early to mid-April, its not uncommon for it to happen in March. In fact, in 2010 it went out on tje 18th of March. David Hodsdon has been keeping track of ice-in and ice-out (among other things) going back to 2001 and he sent me his records yesterday to post on the site. Thank you David!
     
  • And... the loons are back! I saw 2 pair this morning. It really is spring.
     
  • I launched my boat today and Margaret and I took a turn around the lake. It was not without some problems. For one thing, the boat launch really is unusable for launching anything bigger than my 14' Starcraft and even that is pushing it. Backing the trailer in until the wheels were at the end of the ramp wasn't enough to float the boat, two of us had to then haul the boat off the trailer. There was only about a foot of water at the end of the ramp. Then I had to row out a good 75 yards or more before it got deep enough where I could lower and start the motor. Then off of the old Ridgeway Camp property, near the point, my motor kicked up hard. I was about 100 yards from shore and thought it was deep enough. Fortunately, I wasn't going that fast and the motor was set to kick up if it hit anything, and kick up it did. Fortunately it didn't damage my motor. Then I saw shallow water ahead off of the point at the end of the Duncan Road, right by the Whitefield/Jefferson town line and I started to slow down but not fast enough and again my motor hit bottom hard. I was not real close to shore- perhaps 70-80 yards. I stopped to examine the lower unit and found no serious damage, but I've got a few more dings in my prop. After this I proceeded very cautiously up to the shoals at the northwest end of the lake near the mouth of the channel where I got out and walked around. Then I headed home. Slowly, and thankful that I wasn't rowing.
    
    I recommend that boaters exercise extreme caution when out on Clary Lake this year; there are rocks, ledges, and snags where you least expect them. I've posted some pictures of my first boating adventure in the album Spring 2012.
     
• 19 March 2012: Just a little ice left here on the south shore which should be gone tomorrow. Can't wait to launch my canoe and take a turn around the lake.

• 18 March 2012:
  • The better part of the northerly half of the lake is now free of ice. Here on the south shore and down on the east end by the boat launch is still iced in but it's melting around the edges. Expect to hear loons any time now.
     
  • As the ice melts, the impact of the draw down becomes painfully apparent. I got a call today from an upset lake shore owner who was taking advantage of the beautiful day to make a spring visit to their camp. They weren't prepared for what they found and wanted to know what was being done about it. It's clear we're not going to see anything like normal water levels this year. The lake is currently 51.6" below the top of the dam.

• 15 March 2012:
  • This year we're partnering with the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program to bring their Invasive Plants Patrol program to Clary Lake. These  consist of an introductory workshop followed by a more in-depth, hands-on field workshop. Dates, times, and locations to follow when they become available. Expect to hear a lot more about the IPP this year!
  • I've implemented a reasonably easy-to-use means of presenting photos on the web site. Check out the Pictures page for more information.

• 14 March 2012: New site launched a couple of days ago.

• 12 March 2012: Here's the OLD NEWS from the Old Site

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