- August 5, 1910 – The Lake George Mirror – Editorial (Author uncertain – probably a member of the Lake George Association)
Making a mill-dam of Lake George is, we believe, one of the chief assets of the International Paper Company’s plant at Ticonderoga. The company have[sic] claimed in various controversies that they do not manipulate the level of the waters of the lake, and in plausible argument call the attention of any interested to the fact that the top of their dam is much below the level of the lake. They do not concede what has become an established fact through expert testimony in the courts of the State – that the water in a stream will set back far above the level of the top of the retarding obstruction. And this is precisely what is being done at Ticonderoga – the setting back of the water by the means of brackets on their dam so that the retarding of the outlet of Lake George is manipulated until this whole body of water is nothing more or less than a huge mill-dam operated for the sole benefit of this concern.
We are told that up at Warrensburg is a remarkable example of the tendency of water to “stack” on account of a dam at the lower end of the river passing through that village. It is stated that when the brackets are on the dam that the water is held back for two miles up the river through some of the swift water to the flats above the county home. As far as we know, there has been no litigation in the Warrensburg instance, but the fact of the stacking of the water has come to be well known in that place. In another town in northern New York, however, where water was stacked to secure a reserve, legal measures succeeded in compelling the defendant to cease from so retarding the stream.
If there exists any right to control the waters of the lake, which we doubt, then it should be vested in the shore owners of the lake, for their exclusive convenience and comfort, and if a control obtains to their detriment and danger – and we believe such a control does exist – then more fools are they for meekly enduring the situation of a variation of more than four feet in the lake level during the season.
This is one of the many things that an association formed for the benefit of the lake should do – not in September – but in the early part of the season. The association has had in its possession for about a year voluminous data on this subject, gathered at great expense by Mr. George O. Knapp, and this far they have made little progress – in fact, so far as we have been able to learn by inquiry, they have taken no action. As was stated in these columns last week, the annual meeting of the association is to be held at some future date not yet decided upon – and we have been informed that this subject might possibly come up for discussion at this meeting. If it does, there will be little time for action through the courts, for we are persuaded that legal measures only will command the respect of this concern:
We do not know of any one thing that should so thoroughly concern Lake Georgians as this, and positive that the time ins NOW, we would respectfully urge on the Lake George Association the necessity for an immediate meeting of its membership.