Flood victims storm PPL meeting

Residents blame releases for most of the flood damage

By TOM KANE

HAWLEY, PA - Mary White doesn’t know where to turn now that her home has been destroyed. She thinks it was destroyed not so much by the late-June storm that showered the region with five days of heavy rains, but by the water releases from the Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL) dam. White, 71, and her 72-year-old husband are retired on a fixed income and, until the flood, lived in a modular home near the Wallenpaupack Creek.

The home is no longer habitable and has been condemned.

She said their home could have survived the first stage of the flood if PPL had not released water at 8,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) on June 28, five days after the heavy rains began.

“We’ve lost everything and have no one to turn to,” White said. “We can’t afford a dumpster or the cost of repairs. It is not clear whether we can receive funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This could all happen again. We are fearful for our lives and our future.”

Several of the 50 residents who attended a meeting held on July 19 by PPL at the Environmental Education Center said the same thing.

“The total amount of the water spill was not the problem,” said Julia Crowder, manager of the Country Inn at the Old Mill Stream in Hawley. Crowder addressed PPL officials at the meeting. “The problem was the force of the release. You were releasing 8,000 cfs for three days, instead of releasing 4,000 cfs for six days.”

Crowder voiced a second problem. “I cannot believe that our federal and state governments gave a license [to PPL] with no provision to make PPL keep a conduit clear through the stream bed below the dam to take the water away from damaging the area. They should do it even if the stream doesn’t belong to them. As a corporation, can they not see the potential for catastrophe we are having and will have again?”

Stones, boulders and other detritus now clog the streambed underneath the bridge to Pike County and will possibly cause the bridge to wash away at the next storm unless it is cleared, other residents said.

Referring to the June 28 releases, “The PPL Electric Company have demonstrated that they have a weapon of mass destruction that they do not hesitate to use, and have used twice in two years,” said Tom Zeterberg, a resident on the Lackawaxen River and a member of the Pike County Planning Commission.

According to Zeterberg, and numerous other residents, they would have been able to survive the storm if it hadn’t been for the releases.

PPL’s response

PPL said that the dam retained 11 billion gallons of water that would have flowed into the homes along the creek and the Lackawaxen River.

“Without the lake and the dam, flooding would have been worse,” said Gary Petrewski, PPL senior engineer, who ran the meeting. “We had to release water through the spillway because the lake filled up,” Petrewski said. The company didn’t release the water earlier in the storm because they were asked not to by local emergency management personnel, he said.

That’s not the way Gordon Wildermuth, director of the Lackawaxen River Conservancy, saw it. “We dispute that statement,” Wildermuth said. “We have not heard any of the emergency people say that. “

What PPL should have done was to start releases when June 23 forecasts predicted three days of heavy rainfall, he said. “There was plenty of warning what the expected rain fall would be from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before the storm hit,” he said.

“We have often been asked why we do not lower the lake during the summer [to provide space for water that may come during a storm],” Petrewski said. “The lake would have to be lowered from an elevation of 1,187.0 above sea level to 1,183.0. If we did that, there would be a number of consequences. There would be a substantial impact to the recreation-based economy. There would be a loss of environmental uses [affecting fishing and boating]. There would be a loss of power generation. There would be significant impacts of the Delaware basin during drought periods, impacts on fishing with economic consequences due to water supply limitations.”

Another frequently asked question is why not spill earlier.

“Weather forecasts are still highly uncertain,” Petrewski said. “During the June event, rain totals far exceeded the forecasts. We would have to release substantial volumes of water days earlier to have a ‘meaningful’ effect on peak spills. [This] could certainly affect other project purposes and create economic harm if weather patterns changed courses. Earlier releases would drive the Lackawaxen River to flood stage earlier. During the June event, the Pike and Wayne county preference was to hold water if we could.”

PPL representatives said they welcomed a chance to form a committee of local residents and other interested parties who would discuss all the issues around flooding and releases from the lake. Meeting attendees were given the chance to add their names to a list for that purpose.

Role of county government

Wildermuth and Zeterberg met with the Pike County Commissioners prior to the meeting and urged them to take a strong adversarial role in urging PPL to work to solve these problems as they did recently when a public electric utility, Pike Light and Power Company, charged rates for electric services.

Commissioners Rich Caridi and Karl Wagner resolved to take up the matter. Commissioner Harry Forbes was on vacation.