Comments received >

September 15, 2006 - Mr. James A. Coleman, Webster, New York

I am a riparian property owner at Webster, NY. This is a comment on the effects of the Lake Ontario level as witnessed this year from 1-1-06 to 8-1-06 at my property.

The decision to store less water in Lake Ontario in the spring of this year (April, May) than typically was done in the past has given me a small stony beach at my shore line and totally stopped the erosion that I normally would experience if the lake lever was allowed to follow the long-term average. The critical lake height that has given me this benefit is 255.4 ft and below. When the lake level was allowed to increase to 246.1 ft at the end of July 2006 a storm from the Northeast with moderately high waves took the entire beach away in the course of two days. Previous storms with waves that I judged to be about the same during May resulted in some displacement of the stone beach but it was restored by the normal wave action from the Northwest. This was when the Lake Ontario level was about 245.3 ft.

Although this small stone beach may seem insignificant among all of the other competing Lake Ontario interests it was of great importance to me and my family. It allowed us to launch our canoe and small Sunfish sailboat from the beach and really provided an access to the water that we don't have when the higher water level takes the beach away. With the beach gone the water and waves cover the base of the large rocks that we had to put in to stop the continued erosion of our shoreline.

The OntRip3 target would be ideal for us and would allow us to have a small beach for most of the year. I would not have scored the OntRip3 and Plan D+ as closely as shown in the Annex 3. The difference in level between OptRip3 and Plan D+ as shown in Figure B 30 will insure that I have no beach from week 12 to week 30 during the year. And since we have no other easy access to the water Plan D+ really reduces the value of my property and the use of the water by my family.

Please give consideration to reviewing the scoring between plan OptRip3 and what ever plan is accepted. Since from my perspective the only acceptable plan is OptRip3, I would welcome a larger difference in the score when compared to what ever plan is accepted. It should in some way affect the property taxes that I have to pay for my waterfront property.

In closing I wish to complement all who have been involved in this work. It is significant

Last update: