It's the same MIB that deleted all of the USGS data prior to 2007 on the Lackawaxen and Mongaup sites.
Now there is no way to prove that After PPL got re-licensed through FERC , and about the same time RIO came back online dumping water in tandem with Wallenpaupack (PPL) that there is less water needed by the Cannonsville to keep Montaque at 1750 CFS today
When The FERC relicensing occured for Wallenpaupak, they were given more water monthly to dump. They used to have a certain number on the reservoir that had to be the storage target. That number was increased which gave more water each individual month to generate power as long as they hit their target on the first of the month. It used to be posted on the website, but that has disapeared too.. Strike One.
At the same time, Rio came back on line and started generating power. The whitewater groups became an enjoiner on the FERC relicense as a condition of granting the license, they wanted more recreational water for their kayaks. They got it. Strike 2
The white water releases were staggered periodically throughout the season. Now one or the other is releasing every weekend. One weekend the release will come from Rio and the next out of Wallenpaupak so there goes our weekend releases. We used to get a release every weekend that they werent doing a whitewater release so on Thursday, I think, you would see a bump in flows. Strike 3
So now they release more water into the main stem then they used to, hence, less releases out of the upstream reservoirs, particularly Cannonsville, as NYC would hoard Pepacton's water for their use.
All in all, the fishing community got a screwing during the relicinsing of both downstream impoundments. The fishing community should have been a party to the relicense as that was about the time the thermal targets ended and the FFMP came into being.Personally, I liked every year renegotiating. I know they throw out the threat that we will go back to Rev. 1, but I dont think they would get away with that, as that would definitely expose the DWM beds and at least back then, we had a thermal component and every year, it was tweaked for the better.
Now there is nothing I hate more than looking at and comparing graphs so my observations are anecdotal, but, I've guided on the system 21 years and have seen some changes, especially now. I think this system presently is in trouble, but I'll save that for another rant, just to say anyone that fishes the WB, especially up top. knows what I mean.
I really dont know how NYC is now a weather forcaster, planning a month out when the National weather service isnt comfortable looking out past a week, but the OST, weather modeling tool was supposed to be the answer. I dont know the answer to this but that OST is guarded more than Fort Knox and NYCDEP wont give out a copy so we can see what the parameters are that they are using. They claim that they spent 5 million for the thing so they dont want to share the info that doesnt work. I bet they just flip a coin.
From what I understand, NYCDEP just got a pretty big grant and they plan on spending it all on the rivers coming into the reservoirs. Their present day capacity in no way is close to what it was when the built them. I assked Paul Rush from DEP waht he though the capacity was now and all he would say is, not what they used to be. They are filled with silt. We used to get a siltation dump into the river when the reservoir hit maybe around 20%. Now it's dumping silt at 86% and higher.
There are serious problems up there so much that all the town supervisors and state reps went to NY and testified as to the economic damage their mismanagement is doing. Hopefully, it will wake them up a little.
