Council Actions of 4/28/10

A busy night at Council.

Council reconsidered it's decision to have police patrols on the lake this summer. A bid specification is being prepared for a new/used boat.

The Indian Lake Ski Club will have a Slalom Ski Course this year. It will be located towards the stump area.

The Peninsula Water Tank will be painted this Summer. This project will not occur during, nor interfere with, the Fourth of July Holiday period.

As always, the official minutes of this meeting will be posted on the Borough's website once they are approved by Council.

Got Geese?

If you have a goose problem on your land, you will be pleased to learn that thanks to the Service Corporation it may improve. The Service Corp. is contracting with Crespo's Wildlife Solutions, of Johnstown, to improve your situation. This firm is fully licensed, bonded, and insured. The will be performing a 'nest and egg treatment' as the first step. This involves locating the nests and spraying the eggs with corn oil, which is biodegradable. After this treatment the eggs will not hatch. This is done every ten days during the nesting season. According to Crespo this procedure must be done three years in a row, which is the maturity cycle for the birds.
This treatment, plus scaring the birds away, which you probably do daily, should convince the Canadian Geese to move elsewhere. At least that is the theory.
Only after three years of the above can other things (read that as 'lethal') be attempted.
There are some of us who don't mind the geese, but we must accept that their droppings (a pound a day per bird) is not good for the lake, just the lake weeds.

Lake safety

I strongly encourage you to read the Mayor's Quarterly Report, as issued by email today. The borough crew is doing the best they can, but there is an awful lot of debris out there.

One editorial comment, the decision to not patrol the lake this summer was a very agonizing decision for the Council to reach. The bottom line is that the borough does not have the money to either repair or replace our patrol boat. The repair on this 1991 boat would cost about $5000, and members of Council felt that this was a poor investment. To purchase a new boat suited for the job would cost $15,000 or more. We are also facing the need to replace our police cruiser shortly, it is laid up today for the second time this month.

Take it easy and be safe out there.

Final on the drawdown

The valve is closed and will remain so.

The lake is refilling towards normal pool level.

The only anticipated opening of the valve will happen once the lake is refilled, the divers will return to set the wedges on this new valve, at the same time the hydraulic system will be modified. This can only be done with the lake full and therefore normal water pressure against the valve. This will be for a very short duration with no noticeable drop in lake elevation.

Valve closed

Our lake is down the requested three feet. The valve was closed yesterday morning. This valve cannot be used to throttle, it is either opened or closed. Therefore the level of the lake will fluctuate (it rose 4" in the past 24 hours) as the valve is opened and closed to maintain a level of approximately -3' for a week. Following that the lake will be allowed to return to normal pool level.

Lake level

Yesterday Indian Lake's pool elevation was approximately 2278.90 feet, and today the lake elevation is approximately 2278.50. Normal pool level is 2281.