First, a quick note to thank the many Gazette donors these last two weeks, who flooded our website and mailbox to help match the $5,000 put up by generous supporters. The Gazette’s summer fundraiser continues through this Sunday, September 7, though without the match to double your contributions. Your donations now will still allow us to help pay staff and fund the technology that helps us create the weekly Gazette issue.
With the work of The Hardwick Gazette centered on the town of Hardwick, though with our office now in Greensboro, it connects two towns that are close to me since I took a gamble and moved here to house sit during the Greensboro winter of 1989-90.
The next summer I started building a house in East Hardwick on land my parents bought in 1969, and haven’t found a reason to leave the area since.
That’s all to say, I’ve been swimming in Caspian Lake since 1962, so it’s important to me, as it is to both towns; Hardwick that owns the town beach and Greensboro, where the lake is. Over the years there have been ongoing struggles over the property, but mostly imposed from outside, and then, mostly by the State of Vermont. Today’s front page story tells a recent part of that tale involving the lake level and how it is regulated.
I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision about setting the level of Caspian Lake. The many interests involved are likely to leave no one 100 percent satisfied with an appropriate solution. Perhaps the most important current concern is the safety of the dam, for which there have been many calls for the Hardwick Electric Department (HED) to have engineers investigate the dam’s safety in recent years, but no detailed evaluation or plan for its maintenance has been created. (At least not one that’s been publicly shared.)
The potential of releasing almost a billion gallons of water must certainly give the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) engineer reason for concern. The current setting of the dam’s weir seems to prevent water from over-topping it in flood conditions and I’ll bet they’d rather have it even lower than it is now, to reduce pressure from high water events on the deteriorating structure.
Other concerns, from lakeshore property owners and recreational users of the lake, need to be considered as well, though likely as a lower priority than the safety of downstream communities.
HED likely doesn’t want or need to own a dam they can no longer use to regulate water levels downstream at its Wolcott power station. And they most certainly will have difficulty finding any economic reason, other than liability, in asking customers to fund maintenance which the state has made useless as a tool for them. This echoes similar issues with other Vermont dams, including the Green River Reservoir in Morrisville.
Thankfully there have been no calls to remove the Caspian Lake dam as far as I know, which would perhaps resolve the maintenance issue, but likely be met with considerable objection from a majority of those with an interest in the subject.
I can’t imagine the Town of Greensboro, the Town of Hardwick, the Greensboro Association (GA) or any private entity wanting to own the dam and be strapped with funding its maintenance, which leaves the State of Vermont.
That situation seems to create good reasons for the two towns, HED and the GA to collaborate in working with the state for it to take on ownership of the dam, along with creating a management plan that protects downstream villages and properties, while preserving the recreational and economic benefits it brings to the area.
Paul Fixx, editor
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
