Army Corps Rejects 'Bank' to Restore Lake Powell

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Lake Powell's owners found out Monday that their plan for the future of the empty lake has been rejected.

Floyd Powell bought the lake and attached dam in the 1920s and his descendents have owned it ever since. After the dam failed in 1999 and again in 2006, the owners began considering their options regarding the property.

The lake area is currently dried up to a few small streams and vegetation has taken over the surrounding area, which has irritated nearby homeowners who bought land that once was waterfront acreage but now overlooks scrub. Homeowners have been working since 2007 to tax themselves at a higher rate in order to have the county purchase the lake and restore it.

The lake owners applied to the Army Corps of Engineers to make the now-boggy area a "wetlands mitigation bank," which means developers could pay to preserve parts of the Lake Powell wetlands in order to build on other sensitive environmental lands elsewhere. This would make them some money, but nearby homeowners didn’t like the idea, nor did people in the community who want the owners to restore the waterway.

The Army Corps handed down its decision Monday in a letter to the lake owners, and they rejected the application for a mitigation bank.

The area already has vegetation reestablished and doesn’t need any restoration work to bring it to a natural state, the Corps said. “The former lake bottom has revegetated, and the streams have reformed, to the point that they can be considered to be naturalized,” the letter reads.

Also, the Corps is concerned about keeping a bank area safe from future floods, since the dam has failed many times previously. Owners proposed a “sill structure” near the dam to control the water level in the area. “The structure would arguably have an adverse impact on the long-term stability of the bank and increase the risk of failure based on the previous dam failures,” according to the letter.

Another issue the Corps has with the application is that property owners adjacent to the newly formed wetlands are arguing their property lines extend to the edge of the water, and now that the water has receded, their property boundaries are increased.

Property owners Stephen and Johanna Pond wrote to the Corps during the comment period and said they had contacted a real estate attorney who assured them they had a claim to additional land. “We can assure you that we will assert our ownership of all land to the edge of the water of the remnants of Lake Powell,” they wrote.

Though the Corps doesn’t get involved in property disputes, mitigation banks need to have full ownership of the property being preserved. “There is no room for open disputes with regard to protecting mitigation areas,” according to the Corps letter. “Therefore… extraordinary proof may be required in order to satisfy property protection concerns.”

The denial letter also makes mention of the lack of public support for the plan. In fact, there was overwhelming written opposition in the form of hundreds of letters and a petition submitted during the comment period, with only a few letters supporting the plan.

“We are happy that the Army Corps has denied the Mitigation Bank,” says Sydney Duvall, a nearby homeowner who has spearheaded the push to restore the lake. “We are however excited that prior to this decision, the lake owners and the homeowners were working towards a beneficial solution. The Corps' denial of the mitigation bank merely eliminates a hurdle in finalizing the negotiations to restore Lake Powell.”

Lake owners still plan to pursue creation of a special tax district that would increase taxes for homeowners who surround the former lake. The plan would have to be accepted by not only a vast majority of residents within the special tax district but also James City County supervisors and the lake owners.

One of the few letters in support of allowing the mitigation bank came from the Gilley family, adjacent property owners. The letter reads, “The lake belongs to the Reed and Adsit families and by right they, the land owners, should be able to make decisions about their property based on their needs and not those of their neighbors.”

The Gilleys go on to say the cost of the dam likely can’t be covered just by the special tax district fees alone and that “the financial burden of restoring the lake and dam should not be imposed upon the county residents.”

The letter concludes, “Save Lake Powell is an initiative for personal gain rather than an initiative for what is right for the environment. Nature has a way of taking care of its own and proof is Lake Powell right now. If a wetland bank is established, the property will be forever preserved, the owners of the lake will have done with their property what they believe is best and the surrounding homeowners will still have a beautiful view.”

Read more about the efforts to restore the waterway on the Save Lake Powell website.