AAA

I don't understand how anyone can have the position that the Atlantic stocking program is not struggling compared to the other stocking programs.  Using the current DEC stocking plan numbers there are roughly 6 Kings, 3 Browns, 3 Steelhead, 2 Lake Trout and 1 Coho stocked for every 1 Atlantic. 

I think we can all agree the open lake harvest of Trout and Salmon reduces the non-Atlantic Salmon numbers far greater as Atlantics are a rare catch in the open lake compared to all the other species.  Yet the return numbers for Kings, Coho, Browns, and Steelhead far exceed their stocking ratio compared to the Atlantic.  You certainly do not see one Atlantic caught for every 6 Kings, 3 Browns, 3 Steelhead or every Coho in total across the tributaries. 

I also do not buy the argument that if Atlantics were stocked in greater numbers they would have a better survival rate.  Coho Salmon are the best direct comparison since they are stocked in similar numbers and both have the advantage of being stocked as Yearlings.  Atlantics also have the advantage of not necessarily dying after spawning, yet Coho numbers exceed Atlantics.

I don't have a problem with Atlantic's, but not sure the current stocking program is worth the effort until they figure out how to get better survivability.

3 hours ago, horsehunter said:

Does anyone know what the maximum level reached in 2019 and when for the east end of the lake?

The town of Napanee On. on the Bay of Quinte is saying this years levels could be 20 inches higher. Not sure how they could make that determination this early.

 

https://www.greaternapanee.com/Modules/News/index.aspx?newsId=91354fd4-884a-47cc-8c95-dae931e8fe62&feedId=9a5bbb6b-9d6d-46c3-9c93-54707873254b,eda0acf6-50ec-4981-83a3-bf568ad62119#

 

If this is even close to coming to pass there is little point to me paying for a slip at the marina. Last year i was parking the truck in 6 inches of water going into July.

According to the video that LO resident fluid engineer put together, the water level at end of 2018 was 245.34 and the peak for 2019 was 249.08.  He had predicted in July that end 2019 would be 245.9 but I believe it was actually 246.2 at end of 2019.

17 minutes ago, iiwhistlerii said:

Over 10 thousand were already evacuated from thier homes during those 2 month time period. Dams were at risk of failing where things could have gotten way worse real quick. Levys did fail, it was a true state of emergency and not just water in the basement. To gain an inch on our end each week we would have had to bury them another food deeper and probably evacuate thousands more. Water flowed down neighborhood streets already, the costs of flooding them further would have probably been astronomical. But your right, we'd be 16 inches or so lower right now, theyd be rebuilding and maybe 2020 wouldnt look like another repeat, but how could anybody have known that in 2017 when it all started. That's a call I wouldnt want to have to make.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

No one wants to see flooding.  But it seems to me some of the opinions expressed here were kind of that's what they get for building in a flood plane.  Yet Montreal isn't is a flood plane and somehow should have different treatment?  I wouldn't want to make the call to flood one area over another, but the management plan needs to be revisited as it does not work in extreme conditions to equally protect all interests to the extent possible.  You can't tell me that over a two year period more water couldn't have safely been released knowing that more water was on it's way based on the levels of the other Great Lakes.  What has been done is history, but they need to learn from this history and adjust the water management plan to be more proactive.

1 hour ago, Lucky13 said:

You have finally hit the nail on the head, this is the attitude of NYS Lake Ontario shoreline property owners, and especially boating fishermen and "professional" aquatic  Uber drivers, also known as charter captains!

So asking for equal treatment is F everyone else?  LO water levels were allowed to flood another 1.1 feet higher to protect Montreal from Ottawa River flooding.  Asking that the flooding burden be at least shared equally between Montreal and LO is a selfish prospective?  Yet protect Montreal at all costs for Ottawa River flooding is the fair thing to do?  Seems you are the one with a skewed perspective.

8 hours ago, iiwhistlerii said:

Lets expand that to not just include us again.  People all around the great lakes have lost cottages, homes, hundreds of years of erosion.  Over 10,000 people have been forced to evacuate there homes near montreal for months twice in the last 3 years.  Increased currents below the dam have caused severe erosion.  Businesses were forced to close along the fox river and green bay due to high water.  Marinas on the west end of lake Erie were unusable much of 2019.   Lighthouse cove on Lake st. Clair and St. Clair shores dealt with severe flooding repeatedly this summer due to the record high water levels that forced evacuations.  Look up some of those videos, water actually flowed through the streets like rivers during every storm surge.  The list is never ending and the stories from lake to lake all read the same.  Yes we are suffering, but we are not alone and I honestly dont believe we've even had it the worst.

There is no question that flooding has impacted lots of areas.  Most of the other examples given do not have the outflow controls LO has and their run off is more naturally controlled.  The point is more could and should have been done to proactively reduce the LO levels since there are outflow controls which make it possible.  85% percent of LO inflow comes from Lake Erie.  With the high water levels in all the other Great Lakes, LO levels should have been more aggressively reduced over the winter to make room for the inflow.  As far as the everyone has flooding issues argument, the point is why should LO bear the higher burden / impact?  Montreal was flooded by the Ottawa River while LO was under flood levels.  Plan 2014 as administered by the IJC resulted in unequal flood protection for those it served.  Rather then equally spread the flooding, LO outflow was reduced to keep it no more than the F level and in effect buffer the Ottawa River run off by holding back water in LO.  This added 1.1 feet to LO water level according to the video posted from the fluid engineer.  I don't understand how lack of recreational access can even be in the same sentence impact wise as flooding and erosion impacts.  The LO outflow level management will never make everyone happy, but it needs to be more fair and more proactive.

50 minutes ago, iiwhistlerii said:

Do a google search man. Its public knowledge and common sense. I even lose 6mph on top end trying to go into that current and it takes me 4000 rpm to stay on plane where usually I can do it at 3 when I'm just cruising into the current. Nobody wants those rapids below the dam. You argue the shipping industry wants lower flows but then argue they want higher water. Guess what, those 2 things dont go together. With higher water come higher flows, they definitely dont want this.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

From what I gathered from the video you posted from the engineer living on LO, there is a minimum flow ("carve out") for shipping but not a maximum flow.  There is a maximum outflow (L limit) objective for shipping.  Clearly, as stated in that video, outflow was limited to protect Montreal over LO in April and May and to protect shipping since then.  Which, according to him, was in violation of provision H14.  He states that the flow should have been up to 500 m/s over L limit if I followed it correctly.  He had also recommended at least 300 m/s over.  Highest I believe I have seen is up to 200 m/s approved by IJC.  What am I missing here?   This is a fluids engineer who has stated that outflows could have been significantly higher but wasn't to protect against flooding in Montreal and also shipping thereafter, at the expense of LO.  By his calculation this added 1.5 feet to LO water levels.  I am not sure I understand the disagreement here.  

6 hours ago, HB2 said:

Unless waterfront tax rates are higher than the rest of the municipality , the reason waterfront owners pay more taxes is because the property is worth more . Which is a,good thing  . And the property owners decision to purchase or to hold on to it . 

 

And assessment is what fair market value is,. I worked on a few houses on Old Edgemere drive , which I have seen on the news that  since the law passed  , anyone would be crazy to buy IMO. 

 

So the market value , as a lot of other property , has dropped . So the assessment should drop . 

 

But better watch out . When this situation becomes the new norm or gets worse and they condemn your property as uninhabitable or insurance will not insure it  , they will give you the lower value to buy you out . 

Yes, there is only one tax rate.  It is the assessed value of the property that causes the higher assessment resulting in higher taxes.  As lake property owners lose property due to erosion the towns resist making adjustments to the assessment to compensate for the lost value.  Adjustments are small and infrequent.  I was just pointing out for his argument  that NYS was using everyone else's taxes dollars to compensate lake owners that lake owners have paid a higher percentage of the property taxes over the years due to their higher property assessments.

3 hours ago, Lucky13 said:

I'm sorry for your losses, but I am just stating facts in here.  If the cottage has been threre for 80n years it was flooded before the seaway, and with a similar "perfect storm" of precip in the watershed and high inflow from the Upper Great Lakes, it will be flooded again.  As I have stated before, one former member of the Board of Control, Dr. Frank Scirimamano, was an outspoken critic of 2014, which is why he is a former member,  and has still stated that the conditions of the last three years were not a byproduct of the plan and would have occurred under the older regulation plans and would have occurred prior to the Seaway.  I agree with what you are saying , pointed it out at the public meetings prior to the original plans and the final version of 2014, even got agreement in  principal from NYSDEC, but IJC makes those decisions and it is their cost benefit analysis, not mine.   That is where people's energies need  be directed.  But please remember that a huge component of Ontario's electricity comes from the Power projects on the river, so they will be resisting shutting off all their lights.  And it is possible that there are not similar issues on the Ontario side of LO because they had more sensible land use policies and did not allow people to build in areas where they might get flooded.  Please also understand that as a non lakeshore resident, I am also feeling pain because the emperor of NYS has decreed that all residents will subsidize the property owners by paying for the damages to these lake side properties even though our public trust doctrine stops at tidewater and we do not enjoy the shoreline access afforded to residents of the upper GL.

You are also not paying the same taxes.  Property taxes are significantly higher for those that own lake frontage and that is every year not just in high water years. Your property taxes are lower due to the tax burden carried by high value properties like lake frontage. So if you really wanted to be fair about it, the lake owner should see a property tax assessment reduction for their damages so instead the decision was to apply state funds to the damages.

23 hours ago, horsehunter said:

So are they saying the stocking will be reduced 60% from what it was 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm assuming the OMNR will be reducing the numbers by the same amount on our side of the puddle.

I guess we fish like hell for 2 years then see what we can get for our boats.

20% reduction year over year for three years is about a 49% reduction from the original pre-cut numbers or in other words the proposed King stocking would be about 51% of the King sticking total before the cuts began.  Still not great.