Watershed levels leave residents unhappy

BAILEYVILLE – Waterfront property owners who last year dangled their toes in the lake next to their camp, now find their feet mired in mud.

And Tuesday they let Domtar pulp and paper mill officials know that they were not happy with the ebb and flow of water in the St. Croix watershed.

The watershed reaches from Sysladobsis Lake to West Grand Lake and from Forest City to the St. Croix River in Baileyville. The company controls 11 dams on the watershed, and less than a quarter of Domtar’s electrical needs are met by using hydropower.

Each year, mill officials meet with camp owners to discuss watershed levels.

Donna Adams, Domtar’s hydropower superintendent, told the more than 30 people at Tuesday’s meeting that an absence of rain had influenced how the system was managed. The company juggles its power needs in conjunction with bass spawning, loon nesting and camp owners’ desire to have water in front of their camps.

This is not the first time the company has had to deal with drought and water flow problems.

In 2001, camp owners similarly criticized former mill owner Georgia-Pacific for how its staff managed the dams. The drought caused G-P officials to walk a tightrope between favorable water levels and satisfying the company’s needs for power.

That same year, Montreal-based Domtar purchased the Woodland pulp and paper mill from Atlanta, Ga.-based G-P.

To date, Adams said, there has only been 11.8 inches of rain in the first six months of this year compared with an average of 50 inches in past years. She said camp owners and people who use the lakes for recreation purposes have complained.

“I’ve been on the telephone a lot,” she said. “It’s been a rough spring.”

During her PowerPoint presentation, Adams had pictures that compared last year’s water levels with this year’s level. It was clear from the pictures that many camp owners on the system now have large sections of exposed bedrock in front of their homes.

Several camp owners urged mill officials to keep water levels higher to prevent similar low water level problems in the future. But Adams said that part of the decision-making process was weather and higher levels could lead to flooding if there was a serious amount of rainfall.

Lee Sochasky, executive director of the St. Croix International Waterway Commission, said a camp owner who could not attend the meeting wanted to know about foam levels on the St. Croix River in May.

Jay Beaudoin, Domtar’s environmental affairs superintendent, said effluent from the recent annual outage had created the problem on the river. “The amount of foam down there certainly was contributed by us,” he said. He said it was a short-lived problem and the company did take steps to minimize it.

Ralph Annis of McAdam, New Brunswick, who has a camp on Palfrey Lake, said that he had taught his children and grandchildren to swim to a certain rock in the lake. Now, he said, that rock was out of water. “At least the top is,” he said.

He said he would like to see an environmental impact study for the entire watershed, but suggested Domtar not conduct it. “That’s letting the fox in the chicken coop,” he said. He said he would like to see the study be conducted by Canadian and U.S. officials.

Beaudoin suggested that a study group be formed to look at the entire system.

At the end of the meeting, several people agreed to serve on the committee.