Residents continue to battle rising water levels

May 07--Tweet

CHAUMONT -- Greg Powell hopes that this spring's flooding and high waters along Lake Ontario won't affect his life forever.

Without flood insurance, he and wife Jeanie could lose everything that they've worked for, since moving into a ranch-style house on Fire Road 26 along Three Mile Bay nearly 15 years ago.

Almost all week, the retired corrections officer watched the levels go up and down as the water has, at times, surrounded their home on a short gravel road in an area called Bay's End.

They don't know what's going to happen.

Late Saturday afternoon, the water was down, but it was starting to rain and he expected the winds to pick up again,

"It's not going to stop," he said.

Hoping the water will stay at bay, he and friend Chris Conaway worked much of Saturday putting another series of sandbags along the lake side of the house. To combat the waters, the Powells have spent $558 buying sand and gravel from a local supplier. They filled up the bags themselves.

It was easier than getting sandbags from the Three Mile Bay Fire Department. They were more concerned with getting them in place as quickly as possible.

While her neighbors' properties haven't been threatened so far, Mrs. Powell has a simple explanation for why their home is threatened.

"We're at the end of the bay," Mrs. Powell said. "The water has no place to go."

Crews from Three Mile Bay and Chaumont fire departments filled up hundreds of more sandbags on Saturday. A tent was put up at a sand pit in Chaumont to keep volunteer firefighters from as far away as Belleville and West Carthage from getting wet from the persistent rain.

Somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 sandbags were filled in Chaumont since Thursday, with about 4,000 going out to shoreline property owners. Prisoners at the Cape Vincent Correctional Facility helped out in the efforts, filling up several thousand.

Chaumont Fire Chief Frederick E. Jackson Jr. said lake levels increased six inches from Friday to Saturday morning. Things could get worse. It's about 26.8 inches above normal lake levels, possibly hitting a record, the fire chief said.

A state of emergency remains in effect for the town of Lyme. The National Weather Service also issued a lake shore flood warning for Jefferson County for 6 a.m. today that lasts through 6 a.m. Monday.

The high water levels are caused primarily by an unusual abundance of rain this spring. Some residents say they haven't seen this much rain and flooding since 1973. But Mr. Powell and others blame the International Joint Commission's Plan 2014, the lake water level management policy implemented by the commission in January, for the problems.

While the lake was calm Thursday and Friday, Chief Jackson feared the wind's direction will change, heading north and into the bay over the next day or so.

That's bad news for lake dwellers, he said.

On his daily rounds, he drove around Point Salubrious to check on a handful of cottages and homes threatened by the rising waters. With sandbags not keeping water away, a woman decided to leave her home until the situation improves, the chief said.

Owners of a nearby cottage, built during the 1920s, have not been able to check on their property because of a death in the family. The fire chief doesn't know if water has gotten inside.

He's expecting more out-of-town cottage owners to make their way to Chaumont in the coming days to inspect their properties and assess damage. Some owners might not know about the flooding until they open the cottages up for the Memorial Day weekend, when they typically make their first visit to the north country for the season, he said.

Thomas C. Carney is already worried about the damage caused to his Water Street home, despite the sandbags placed to protect it. Sitting on wooden pillars, the house could sustain extensive damage, where water most likely sits underneath the kitchen, dining and laundry rooms.

"We're battling," he said. "We're battling."

Fortunately, he spent a lot of money on flood insurance for the house he's lived in for the past 15 years, he said.

Normally, the Chaumont Bay Marina would be bustling with boaters and anglers this time of the year.

Only a handful of people showed up on Saturday. Boats stored for the winter remain sitting idle.

During some of the quiet time, owner Mark Marino used a small front loader to collect a dozen sandbags and dirt to keep some running rainwater out of his parking lot.

He's losing more than $5,000 in business, but things could be worse, so he's not complaining.

"I'm going fishing," he said. "That's all I know."

With the lake waters calm along Chaumont and Three Mile Bay on Thursday and Friday, some of the southern shore communities got hit hard with waves banging directly at properties.

Some of the Greene Point Marina & Mobile Home Park on Sandy Pond in Mannsville, along the Jefferson and Oswego county line, was under water. A road running alongside a peninsula flooded and the store building took in water, said Cheryl Yerdon, whose family owns the 112-year-old resort area. With all the water, the marina also was empty of boats.

"It was really bad," she said.

A 17-mile stretch of sand dunes in Oswego County also has been threatened by waves smashing into them. The dunes protect inland marshes and local wildlife.

John DeHollander, acting chairman of the Ontario Dune Coalition, hasn't been able to visit the dunes to see what the rising waters are doing to them. However, he's seen photos that show the dunes are getting somewhat pounded by the waves.

He expects that the high lake levels will continue into June. But he's not too concerned.

"It's really cyclical," Mr. DeHollander said. "It's Mother Nature taking its course."

The dunes were built up before and they will be again, he said.

But Mr. Powell and his wife may not be so fortunate if water levels continue to go up and the sandbags don't hold.

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