Duane Lake Association

Upcoming Events and News from your Duane Lake Association

Get ready for "Raptor Day" at Duane Lake!

DLA is looking forward to inviting

Silent Wings, a rehabilitation and educational non-profit

(Silent Wings – Raptor Rehab and Education) to present a program about birds of prey. Three owls, a hawk, and a falcon will be coming along, so we can see them up close and learn. This program is appropriate for all ages (5-99) Silent Wings comes highly recommended from local libraries. DLA members are encouraged to bring a friend or family member to join us for the event! The event will be held in the Lady of Fatima Church Hall in Delanson.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO INDICATE THE DATES THAT WORK FOR YOU.

We will choose the date that works for the most members. Please complete the survey by Wednesday, January 15th.

Click here >>>Raptor Day Survey - Google Forms<<< Click here

2025 Duane Lake Eagle Calendars

The new 2025 Duane Lake eagle calendars are now available. The photos, taken by Karen Connors, of our resident eagles and some of their offspring are incredible and each month's page includes everything you wanted to know about eagles! The calendars cost $20 each with a portion of the proceeds going toward the Duane Lake Association.

If you would like to purchase a calendar,

please text Karen at 518-421-8497 by next Friday, January 17th.

The 2025 Roving Feast is Coming Up!

The Duane Lake Roving Feast is going to take place on Saturday, January 25, 2025. This is a fun (and delicious) winter time community event that includes stops at five of your neighbors homes, each stop hosting a course or beverage. Neighbors can pitch-in and provide a dish of their choice to supplement a particular host stop. So far, we have the soup, the brandy stop and the main course lined-up; we still need to line-up host stops for the appetizers and for dessert. Please reach out to Kim Roberts if you are interested in hosting one of these stops or just providing a dish to help out.

Kim can be reached by calling or texting him at 518-522-6811 or by e-mail at hobiekim@aol.com (calling Kim is the prefered contact).

2025 DLA membership drive is coming your way!

Please watch for your 2025 DLA membership mailing coming to you by week's end. Lake stewardship is financed and supported by your generous dollars and your active membership in the Lake Association. Your participation and fresh perspectives in these volunteer activities keep our community vibrant and our ecosystem healthy. Please be sure to send in your membership dues promptly. Thank you in advance for your support!

What septic service do you use?

We are curious about what septic pumping company you use and your experience with the company. Have you been satisfied with their service or not? Please reply with your comments - both positive and negative.

Stay warm and we hope to see all of you at the Roving Feast in a couple of weeks!

Save the date...Roving Feast!

This is your official Save-the-Date for the (Annual) Roving Feast! A Duane Lake tradition (with a slight pause during Covid) is going to take place on Saturday, January 25, 2025. This is a fun (and delicious) winter time community event that includes stops at five of your neighbors homes, each stop hosting a course or beverage. Neighbors can pitch-in and provide a dish of their choice to supplement a particular host stop. Host stop volunteers are needed for each course: appetizers, soup, brandy, main course and dessert. Please reach out to Kim Roberts if you are interested in hosting a stop or just providing a dish to help out. Kim can be reached by calling or texting him at 518-522-6811 or by e-mail at hobiekim@aol.com (calling Kim is the prefered contact).

Holiday trash pickup scheduled delay

***Update***: Despite the Casella website stating a 1 day delay for trash pickup New Years week, a text message states pickup will be operating on the NORMAL schedule tomorrow. Please be prepared to place your bins out for pickup this Wednesday January 1st, 2025. Happy New Year!

Update: Where things stand on canal and culvert maintenance

Is the Town of Duanesburg going to accept responsibility for maintaining the outlet canal and culvert?

It remains to be seen.

Representatives of the DLA made further presentations to the Town Board in late October and early November on the matter of repair and maintenance of the culvert and canal through which Duane Lake drains. It’s their culvert and much of the canal is within the Town’s right-of-way.

The DLA is petitioning the Town to recognize its responsibility and take action before it is too late.

It might seem odd to press the matter right now, with lake water at or near an all-time low due to drought (something everyone who relies on lake water should start thinking about), but it all has to due with the threat posed to the dam by big storms that over-fill the lake and send water over the top of the dam. We’ve been nagging the Town for at least ten years on this.

We know of three instances when the lake water has risen that high. Each time it eroded a little more soil off the top and back side of the dam. At some point it can cause a dam blow-out, as it has elsewhere.

This is not an emergency. Not yet. This is about doing proper maintenance before it’s too late.

The canal is plugged with 70 years-worth of road sand (and brush growing in it).

This is the canal, now grown full of purple loosestrife, goldenrod, and woody brush.
Every cubic inch of vegetation is a cubic inch less capacity for storm water.

The Town’s large culvert is also sagging. As recently as five years ago DLA volunteers used to be able to walk through it in a bent-over posture to clean out debris. Now you’d have to crawl.

The exit end of the culvert that drains Duane Lake.
Note the flattening of the top inside. This degree of severity is quite new.

And—just to repeat what we’ve been saying for years—the culvert was inserted a foot too high, overriding the function of the spillway built by NY State, pushing up stormwater to an elevation NY State says is an unsafe level, threatening the dam.

The DLA has notified the NY State Dam Safety Section (of DEC) at least three times over the years. After all, they directed that it be built to these specifications as a replacement for one they deemed too high.

So far 68 Duane Lake property owners have signed the petition. But we can do better.

Please know that we need not settle for one signature per household. Spouses and adult children with an ownership interest (or future ownership interest) can sign it, too.

So . . . if you want to support this effort by the DLA, please make sure every adult in your family signs this online petition.

It can only help.

Thanks for your support!

Your DLA Board of Directors,

Pat Huff Chris Miller Norm Stewart Kathy Hotaling

Alan Knight Kim Roberts Dirk Felton Ian Colgan Tom McGrath

Requesting your signature to the Town

To all our Duane Lake neighbors:

For many years various members of the Duane Lake community and the DLA Board have tried to convince the Duanesburg Town Board that it is the Town's responsibility to maintain the canal through which Duane Lake drains into the Bozenkill.

Over the past six years the DLA Board has asked the Town Highway Superintendent and Town Board to respect the lake and adopt practices that do not harm it. We have repeatedly been brushed off.

Recent reports of horrible hurricane damage in Florida and North Carolina remind us what can happen when we fail to accommodate the reality of inevitable storm water.

In our case, storm water has overtopped the dam at least three times that we know of, each time eroding a bit of the top and the back side of the dam.

The inability of excess storm water to get out of the lake efficiently through a clogged outlet canal--a Town-created problem--poses real risks to the dam.

We need the Town to recognize its responsibility and act accordingly.

Once again we ask for your support by completing an online petition.

>>CLICK HERE TO SIGN<<

To demonstrate community support (also known as voting strength) we need your name and Duane Lake address added to the petition by midnight, October 31. We will present the petition to the Town Board at its November meeting.

Thanks for your loyal support. It is very much recognized and appreciated.

Your DLA Board of Directors,