Published: June 10, 2008 12:57 am      

LAKE ONTARIO: Water levels at issue

Shoreline property owners on Lake Ontario are preparing to buck an environmental plan on a new strategy to regulate the levels of Lake Ontario. They’ll make their case at a public hearing today at 7 p.m. at the Olcott Fire Hall.

Two members of the International Joint Commission will conduct the meeting to discuss a $20 million study that was conducted over the past five years. Its purpose was to see if a better plan could be developed. Three plans have been proposed to replace the current Plan 1958.

Tony McKenna, a member of the plan’s Public Interest Advisory Committee, said environmentalists are pushing for Plan B-plus, which would to stretch the current range of water levels. That is, the deepest Great Lake would get higher highs and lower lows.

A study that concluded Plan B-plus would protect the wetlands has not been backed up.

Plan B-plus would adversely affect the shoreline, which has been eroded over the years, according to McKenna. Property owners say they are paying taxes on land that is now under water. While water levels on the other Great Lakes are going down, Lake Ontario is going up.

“I used to have beach. Now I get the beach about two weeks after Labor Day,” said Herb Linderman, who has 150 feet of lakeshore property on Somerset Drive in Somerset. “In a two-week period, all of a sudden I get a beach and what good is it then. I am not at all happy with them.

“The last time they screwed up and had the lake high in 1973, the corps of engineers (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) put the shore protection in. The water comes up, hits that and erodes. I used to be able to mow a lawn there, and it’s all washed away now.”

John Shimshack has a 60-foot frontage on West Bluff on Olcott and he is on the board of directors of Olcott Yacht Club. “I’ve got a breakwall, and when the water gets high and rough, I’ll even get seaweed on my roof. Waves of water come over the breakwall.”

Shimshack’s family has had the lakefront property 65 years. “I have a pier out front, but I can’t keep a boat there. The pier is mostly under water.”

The Shimshacks have had boat houses washed away. “We’re seeing severe erosion everywhere. It’s an obvious loss of property. I understand the wetland issue, but there are other issues.”

Homeowners who seek to protect their property have to get a joint permit from the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers.

“It’s a very difficult process to get something through in a timely manner,” McKenna said. “The DEC is not trying to help you out. They are trying to protect the environment. It’s a very difficult process. It’s very expensive and hard to find somebody to do it.”

Work can only be done in the fall, when the water level is lowest.

According to McKenna, it was the intent of the Joint Commission to find a plan that would improve the way the system works without harming any one of the stakeholders: Power, shipping, municipal water uses, shoreline property owners, recreational boaters and the environmentalists.

He feels Plan B-plus is stacked for environmentalists and stacked against the shoreline property owners. South shore property owners are pushing back and are using a report by a scientific panel.

The peer group of scientists reported that it cannot endorse the findings of the environmental study group.

Environmentalist were late arrivals to the five-year study, according to McKenna. He wrote, “The environmental special interests have been lobbying for a plan called Plan B-plus, which, in theory, is best for the environment but has damaging consequences for shoreline property owners. There is a problem with the science behind the environmental conclusions.”

The higher highs will happen in the early spring — a period of time that can be very damaging to shoreline owners, he asserts. Further, the lower lows will occur in the late summer or fall when boaters already have problems.

The most effected areas are along the South shore of Lake Ontario in Niagara, Orleans, Wayne and Monroe counties. The IJC has come out with an alternative plan — Plan 2007 — which has a relief process. However, that relief process does not come into effect until the water levels are even higher than under the 1958 plan.

“It appears that the IJC intends to implement Plan 2007 — which is the good news,” McKenna said. “But, they want to allow for a switch to Plan B-plus as soon as possible.”

He wants to unite the property owners against Plan B-plus.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott  439-9222, ext. 6246.