ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) Full Story— Lake Ontario water levels continue to drop and are currently running near a foot below average. The risk of significant flooding is near zero for Lake Ontario and that is welcome news for those that had damage from the flooding over the past few years.
Spring rain and more melting should bring an extra foot of water to the lake by May, but Edgemere Drive homeowners Doug Dobson and Bob Rutz say the lake still will not flood thanks to organizational lobbying to change regulation of outflow and deviating from Plan 2014.
“The IJC and the river board, through their ability to deviate, has demonstrated their ability to have an impact on the lake level,” said Dobson, Co-Founder, Vice President, and Board of Director for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Alliance. His organization along with others along Lake Ontario have come together by the thousands to push back on the International Joint Commission (IJC) and the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLR).
Plan 2014 guides how Lake Ontario water flows out through the Moses-Saunders Dam. Deviations away from this plan occurred throughout the entirety of 2020. Those continued through the end of February 2021 where the IJC in a release said that it had contributed to lowering lake levels.
Somewhat drier weather conditions over the past several months coupled with favorable river ice conditions and continued high outflows from Lake Ontario have caused a decline in the lake’s level, such that it is now a few centimeters below the seasonal long-term average. Under the Board’s current deviation strategy, outflows from Lake Ontario have been maximized and set above some Plan 2014 prescribed limits, resulting in the removal of an additional 7.9 cm (3.1 in) of water from Lake Ontario when compared to strict adherence to Plan 2014 rules. The Board intends to continue this strategy through 28 February.
Some changing of the ILOSLR board in 2019 and 2020 may have helped some of these adjustments, according to Dobson. He gives credit to politicians and members such as Greece town Supervisor Bill Reilich for the extra push. “They’re deviating from the hard, fixed boundaries, rules of Plan 2014. The old IJC board that implemented and approved and put into place Plan 2014 back in the beginning of 2017, you can kind of say plan 2014 was their baby, and come heck or high water, the old IJC board was not willing to deviate from that plan at all,” said Dobson.
As of March 1, the board has reverted back to Plan 2014.