Oswego, NY -- Business owners, residents and camp owners along the shore of Lake Ontario in Oswego and Jefferson counties should pray for more snow and rain this winter and spring to help with lake water levels next year. A meeting of the International St. Lawrence River Control Board in Cornwall, Ontario was conducted Tuesday night with a satellite meeting...
Oswego, NY -- Business owners, residents and camp owners along the shore of Lake Ontario in Oswego and Jefferson counties should pray for more snow and rain this winter and spring to help with lake water levels next year.
A meeting of the International St. Lawrence River Control Board in Cornwall, Ontario was conducted Tuesday night with a satellite meeting site at the State University College at Oswego. The board follows a plan set up in the mid-1950s to help regulate water flows from Lake Erie through Lake Ontario and into the St. Lawrence River.
This summer, businesses, fishermen, boaters and camp owners said the water was lower than they had seen in years. Ronald Lupa, of Fulton, who has a camp on Chaumont Bay on Lake Ontario in Jefferson County, said back in May that the water was two feet below normal and “my new dock system, boat lift and 21-foot Sea Ray are no longer usable in this body of water."
Marina owners in Sandy Pond wondered if anyone would be able to get their boats from the pond out onto Lake Ontario because the channel at one point was only 10 inches deep. And the Sandy Pond Channel Maintenance Association couldn’t dredge the channel until later in the summer because of spawning fish.
The 10 meeting attendees in Oswego, those in Cornwall and those listening by phone were told that this year many areas from the Great Lakes to Montreal hit historic lows for water levels. All of the Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario, still were below average as of Sept. 16.
The main reason is a low amount of snow, early snow melt off and little rain in the spring.
James Vollmershausen, Canadian chair of the board, said the board did all it could to keep levels from being worse during this difficult year. And for next summer, he said everything depends on the weather.
“I guess we should put pressure on the weather people,” he said when asked what next summer looks like. “It’s hard to forecast in any informed way what the weather will be. Average is a good answer.”
Army Corps of Engineers Col. Jack Drolet said the summer of 2008 and 2009 saw above normal precipitation and snow melt into the lake and river. This past year was below normal.
Some residents wondered why the board wouldn’t hold water back in Lake Ontario. But Vollmershausen and others explained that areas like Montreal Harbor were hurting worse than Lake Ontario so the water had to continue flowing down river.
And even with that, Montreal Harbor still was 21 inches below average Sept. 16. Lake Ontario was 2 inches below average on that date. Lake Erie was 6 inches below average Sept. 16 and 85 percent of the supply of water into Lake Ontario comes from Lake Erie.
John Kangas, secretary of the United States section of the board, said even with the low precipitation and work by the board, Lake Ontario’s levels were within the range set up by the water level regulation plan.
The plan states the lake’s water levels should be within a four-foot range (247 to 243 feet). During the summer, lake water levels were between 244 and 245 feet.