In case you missed the MVWA's full page color advertisement in Friday's and Sunday's Observer Dispatch (which YOU paid for!) it is reproduced at left. It is almost verbatim the March 2013 newsletter you already received with your water bill. Both trumpet the agreement reached between the MVWA and NYS Canal Corporation that settled their lawsuit. Why do we hear about this again, now?
The bold text 2/3 down gives a clue:
"While this agreement does ensure prudent management of reservoir levels, it is important to note that neither the MVWA nor the Canal Corporation controls the flow of water into the West Canada Creek below that reservoir. The operations of a privately-owned hydroelectric plant determine how much water will be released and when."
Blame for flows of the West Canada below the reservoir is being deflected to a "privately-owned" company -- but not mentioned is the fact that MVWA and Canal Corp (your government) are the only ones who divert water away from the Creek (the power company does not).
With West Canada Creek's natural flows ranging from about 150 cubic feet per second up to over 30,000 cfs, there is plenty of water available for all sorts of uses -- provided that "excess" water is captured when flows are high and released when flows are low. Although MVWA has often claimed a "right" to take 48.5 million (75 cfs) gallons of water per day, that right was contingent upon it maintaining a storage reservoir upstream of Hinckley Reservoir of a size per the table reproduced at the right. Doing the math with these figures reveals that MVWA should be holding about 120 days' worth of water use in storage. At the full 48.5 MGD, 6 billion gallons should be in storage. That's almost 1/4 the size of Hinckley reservoir itself! MVWA should be using this 120 day storage to replace what it takes out of Hinckley when creek flows are low.
MVWA's ad is drumming up public support for the MVWA-Canal Corp agreement now perhaps to avoid it being scrutinized as part of MVWA's pending application before the Department of Environmental Conservation to expand its service area. The new agreement does not hold water. It was made without benefit of an environmental impact statement. The two "consumers" of West Canada Creek water went into a closed room and divided the creek's water among themselves. The agreement relieves MVWA of the storage and flow augmentation requirements which means that water will be removed by MVWA and not replaced. Ultimately that means less water available for the creek below Hinckley Dam.
Slick public relations campaigns may distract, but they cannot paper over the math.
MVWA and Canal Corp hope no one notices that their agreement comes at the expense of everyone who uses the creek below the Hinckley dam.
7 comments:
A water allocation protocol that served fairly well for almost a century is now replaced with ---- what? No other input sought. Why is the DEC so conspicuously absent from such a major decision as changing the flow received by the West Canada Creek? They are supposed to be our honest broker. I've grown to expect as much from a couple of unaccountable quasi-governmental agencies, but it is past the time for DEC to step up to perform its core mission of conserving and protecting the State's natural resources and environment.
It's been about five years since I fly fished the Trophy section below the dam off Partridge Hill Road. The West Canada was even nicer in places than my old favorite home stream, the Upper Esopus in the Catskills. The West Canada's easy bottom farther down to Route 8 stood out in my memory as one of the best New York State fishing had to offer. Whenever I got on its water in recent years I always felt bad I wasted my youth on pretty girls when I could have been fishing. Sometimes. Not often, come to think of it. Those put 'n take browns (the fish) were an easy catch on a Prince Nymph, shot out with a sideways cast and floated down beneath the surface under overhanging bushes. But I'd clomp upstream and persist among the riffles for a rainbow using my favorite, The Professor, also the preferred fly of Mary Orvis Marbury over a hundred years ago. I still tie flies with recipes from her seminal 1892 Favorite Flies and Their Histories. While her Dad was putting together a retail empire, Mary was collecting flies from all over the U.S. and Britain and getting on the stream in her skirt and boots and testing them. My kind of woman!
I seem to remember my Uncle Walt all but lived on the West Canada, and were he still alive he would cry over what's happening today to his beloved "foothills," as he called them. New York state continues to destroy itself. I should say it lets itself be be destroyed by its politicians. Too bad. Someone should take Andrew Cuomo fishing.
Strike I bet this "ad" has something to do with a judge's decision in favor of the power company over the state in a recent court case.
Anonymous -- Fill me in with some details. I want to know more. Send to my email if you don't want to post here.
Strike see below, keep up the good work
http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/ad3/Decisions/2014/516510.pdf
WOW -- Thank you, Anonymous!
Glad I could help. Send it to my good friend Patrick Beecher and I hope he removed just like Grey Dam !
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