SENECA LAKE, N.Y. — Rising water levels at Seneca Lake have caused extensive damage to docks and property along the shoreline.
The Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association says more rain in recent days brought water levels to about 447 feet, the highest level since 2021. News10NBC’s Garrett Chan was at the scene last week and returned to find more signs of damage, including destroyed docks and debris washing up along the shoreline.
“At this point in the last, I want to say 36 hours, we’ve gotten well over more than 100 reports of damage across the lake,” said Benjamin Klein, association director for the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association. “Just there’s a lot of damage that’s going on there right now from the water levels, but also from the waves that are getting churned up by the wind.”
Bob Denson says wind-fueled waves destroyed one of his docks in late March. Since then, he’s had to deal with the frame completely submerged and all but one walking panel now sits in a large pile.
“We had high water in ’93. And we’ve had several issues over the years, but in conjunction with a 40 to 50 mile an hour wind, it’s given us a lot of headaches,” Denson said. “And I just lost my whole dock and the seawall.”
This week, the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association rolled out a real-time text alert system that neighbors can sign up for. The alerts are sent out as needed, updating neighbors on the water levels.
Klein says they’ve been using it more recently and plan on making the alert system permanent because lake levels will always be an issue, whether they’re too low or too high.
“We have an acute sense of the water level here,” Denson said. “The water’s come up an inch, you know, so we really know before anybody more with more remote access finds out that we were usually right on top of it within hours or minutes.”
Klein told News10NBC that state inspectors were originally supposed to assess damage along the lakeshore but were told those inspectors are focused on state and municipal infrastructure.
As cleanup continues, if conditions don’t improve, the price tag for repairs could get a lot higher.
“In terms of what I’ve seen in my personal experience, which I would like to emphasize, I am not a disaster relief expert, I would put the number in the minimum of the millions of dollars range, if not the tens of millions of dollars range,” Klein said. “And if things aren’t mitigated and it continues throughout the course of the summer like this, that number could exponentially increase.”
The Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association advises neighbors who have damaged docks or property to contact their county emergency management office with pictures and video evidence and to CC Pure Lakes Water. Seneca Lake outflows go through two hydroelectric dams controlled by Relevate Power.
Pure Waters says Relevate plans on releasing 2,800 cubic feet per second of water through those dams. News10NBC reached out to Relevate Power on how this will affect future levels.
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