Duane Lake News...Saturday Edition

Schenectady County Legislature Creates Septic Replacement Program for Duane Lake

    At their Tuesday, March 10, meeting, the Schenectady County Legislature approved the Duane Lake Clean Water Act. The vote was 15-0.

    The legislature meeting, discussion, and vote can be found here on YouTube. Advance the timeline to 33 minutes to see it.

    This action comes after more than six years of repeated rejection by the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) of Duane Lake’s application for acceptance into the NY State Septic Replacement Program.

    While operational details are not yet available, the program will emulate the NY State Program and offer homeowners around Duane Lake 50% reimbursement for new higher-tech septic systems where needed, up to a $10,000 maximum. Initial funding would assist six applicants.

    The program will be managed by the office of the Schenectady County Manager.

    The Duane Lake Association has been advocating for this since the State program was rolled out in 2018 and is seen by the association—and notably supported by both the Duane Lake community in a high-response-rate survey and the Duanesburg Town Board, as a far more cost-effective tool than the multi-million-dollar municipal sewer system long insisted-upon by DEC.

    The move is seen as vital not only to Duane Lake, itself, but to the downstream Watervliet Reservoir, which provides drinking water to more than an estimated 50,000 users in Guilderland and the City of Watervliet.

    In a related development, NBT Bank is offering special-rate loans to help homeowners pay for systems where needed.

    Specials thanks are due to county legislators Holly Vellano and Tony Jasenski for believing in our cause and championing it patiently for several years. And to State Senator Pat Fahy for her efforts on our behalf by successfully pushing legislation through the Senate that would have directed DEC to accept Duane Lake into the program, and to Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara and his legislative aide Brendan Savage for trying to get it passed by the State Assembly. Their efforts might yet bear fruit.

    And the Duane Lake community is also to be thanked for its support for this over the years and its enormous turnout for the DEC presentation at the Town Board meeting on March 11. DEC staff were blown away by the show of interest.

    Be watching for details on the Duane Lake Association website in coming days and weeks.


Maybe you need a shredder?

    Perhaps you’ve noticed: Wednesday is trash pickup day at Duane Lake. It’s also “be careful what you trash day.” Or how you trash it. Like UPS and FedEx drivers, these trash-truck jockeys move fast. And stuff flies out. Not good. One of our DLA board members took a walk around Duane Lake this past Wednesday and found somebody’s checking account statement in the road (removed; no security breach now) and somebody ‘s else’s Fidelity investments portfolio report. Geesh. So, what to do? Two ideas. Buy a shredder and use it or buy some of those big brown bags available at hardware stores for fall-season leaves and put all your paper / recycling in there and staple it shut before stuffing it into your trash barrel.

    A couple years ago a checkbook was found lying in the middle of the road. It got returned to its owner.

    It’s a community thing.


They’re back!

    It happens every spring about this time of year: snow-melt season. Mud season (and dust season this year). Sap running for maple syrup producers in upstate New York.

    And today, March 12, blackbirds and grackles cackling by the hundreds in some lucky backyards. Just part of the show at Duane Lake and so worth the ticket price.

Coming soon to a fire hall near you: a Duane Lake neighborhood meeting

    The DLA Board of Directors (Kim Roberts, Kathy Hotaling, Pat Huff, Norm Stewart, Carolyn MacDonald, Ian Colgan, Chris Miller, Ken Runion, and Alan Knight) have been researching and debating several “heavy” topics and alternative courses action for stewardship of our lake. In coming days and weeks we will lay it all out in a series of fact sheets for your advance thinking and ask for your opinions and guidance. We will let you know when.

Duane Lake community...Thank You!

Thank you!  The Duane Lake community came through and showed up once again!  The large turnout at the Town Board meeting Thursday evening made an important impression on the DEC and town and county officials.  Without the community presence and the informed discussion, the conversation and DEC's take-home impressions might have gone differently.

So again, THANK YOU!  You made a difference, a BIG difference.  (Details to follow soon on the DLA website.)

Pat Huff     Carolyn MacDonald     Norm Stewart     Alan Knight

Chris Miller     Kim Roberts     Ian Colgan     Kathy Hotaling     Ken Runion

Town Board meeting agenda and option to join remotely

For those of you who cannot attend the February 26th Town Board meeting in person but would like to view the meeting, the full meeting agenda is here and provides an option to join remotely.

• You will need the meeting ID and password to join, found at the top of the meeting agenda and found below.

• The meeting is broadcasted via Microsoft Teams.
• You may need to download the MS Teams app or scan the QR code for the mobile application to join the meeting. Click here for Microsoft Teams download options.
• The meeting broadcast is a one-way audio/video feed, and you cannot participate, only watch and listen.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO SHOW UP THURSDAY NIGHT: DEC's plan could cost you $8,500 a year for 30 years

The DEC presentation to the Town Board this week could cost you more than $8,000/year for 30 years. That's the price tag for a sewer plan they have advocated for Duane Lake.

So please attend the town board meeting to hear and comment on the presentation Thursday evening, 7:00 p.m., at the Duanesburg Town Hall, back door.

Why? The DEC has long taken the position that Duane Lake needs a municipal sewer system, priced at least $9.2 million (2023 dollars; well over $10 million now). This is based on a 2023 report produced by an engineering firm that specializes in designing and building sewer systems. You can read the report here.

A sewer district would be mandatory for every parcel in the district, even if you recently installed a state-of-the-art septic system, even if you only use your property a few weekends a year.

The engineering report projects the annual cost (including debt service, annual operations, and maintenance) to each shoreline homeowner to be $5,866 ($6,400 in 2026 dollars) but was based on 86 shoreline parcels sharing the cost. A review of County tax maps reveals only 64 parcels. That means the true cost would be about 1/3 more than Delaware Engineering Company forecasts, or in the vicinity of $8,500 per year for no fewer than the 30 years (as per the engineering report) to pay off the Town’s construction loan. And annual operations and maintenance costs will inevitably go up. These projections do not even include the price of digging up your yard to connect to the sewer system (whether you need it or not).

Do Delaware Engineering and DEC even know what is causing what their report calls “declining water quality in Duane Lake”? Or how severe? What is their evidence?

Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised. Maybe DEC will no longer advocate a sewer system and will consider a septic replacement program instead. Maybe we’ll find out.

Carpools will be arranged as needed. Contact DuaneLakeAssoc@gmail.com if you need a ride and to let us know that you will be attending, so we have a nose count.

THURSDAY NIGHT, 7:00 P.M. DUANESBURG TOWN HALL, BACK DOOR.

Roving Feast 2026 next Saturday!

Who's excited for Duane Lake Roving Feast 2026!  I know I am and we have some details ready to share with you...  

...but first, we still need your help!  

There are just two stops this year...yes, in winter we typically have appetizer, brandy social, soup, dinner, and dessert stops, but with so many snowbirds sunning in the south and some hosts simply unavailable, this year we have only 2 stops so far, Appetizers and Brandy Social. 

When:    Saturday, February 28th

Where:   Appetizers at 4pm, The Vincent's House

               Brandy Social 6pm, Jerry Evans House

               Dessert, TBD

We would really like to add a Dessert stop to round out the evening.  If you can host the final stop, Dessert, please let our event coordinator Kim Roberts know at hobiekim@aol.com.  He will gladly update the map if you raise your hand!!!

We have some new lake residents and members, so if you've never hosted before and would like more details, email Kim or ask the DLA at duanelakeassoc@gmail.com.

See you next Saturday!

The DLA

Thank you! Upcoming DEC/Town Board meeting attendance

 

Duane Lake neighbors,

We have received a fair amount of responses to the latest email/web post notifying you and encouraging your attendance at the DEC/Duanesburg Town Board meeting this coming Thursday evening, 7pm, at the Duanesburg Town Hall.

THANK YOU to all the households who sent a YES, I will be there message!

We hope we can count on you to be one of many representing our precious lake community! If you haven't seen the email or web post about this meeting, follow the link here to the Duane Lake Association website, An Appeal to the Duane Lake Community There's still time to plan to be in attendance - you don't have to speak, just show up! Drop us an email if you can attend.

See you there!!

The DLA

An Appeal to the Duane Lake Community

    Over the years you may have heard such exhortations as “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country,” or “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

    It’s time for an update.

    Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their neighborhood and the precious lake upon which so many of us depend.

    Or, the only thing necessary for the triumph of an unaccountable, unresponsive bureaucracy is that good citizens do nothing.

    We refer to the upcoming appearance of officials of the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (Division of Water Resources) at a Duanesburg Town Board meeting this coming Thursday at 7:00 p.m.

    While we do not know the precise content of the DEC remarks, we know how this meeting came to be. It’s about our water.

• DEC has “creatively” found ways for eight years to deny Duane Lake’s application to be admitted to the NY State Septic Replacement Program (up to $10,000 in reimbursement for replacing failing septic systems in approved watersheds). All of them reveal an inexplicable and willful denial of law, science, and reality.

• DEC has repeatedly insisted Duane Lake needed a $6 million sewer system (estimate in 2020 dollars; $7.6 million in 2026 dollars, as per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) that would then have been cut in half by a federal grant, leaving more than $4 million to be repaid by Duane Lake residents, about 15 of whom have already put in new septic systems, anyway. And this latest of three engineering proposals grossly exaggerated the number of property owners that would share that cost every year – 86 versus 75 at most and only 64 if only the shoreline properties, and about 14 of those do not even drain into the lake. Town and County officials have already rejected the sewer proposal as economically infeasible and unnecessary, given an at-hand effective alternative at a fraction of the price.

• Legislation proposed by our State Senator Pat Fahy that would direct DEC to admit Duane Lake into the program was approved by the NY State Senate. Similar legislation introduced by Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara to the State Assembly did not pass.

• Following these legislative actions, officials of the DEC Division of Water Resources promised to present to the Duane Lake community and Duanesburg Town Board a proposed management plan by late summer of 2025. It did not happen.

• Instead, those officials met with Town and County officials (the Duane Lake Association was neither informed of or invited to this meeting). We are informed that DEC was “shocked” to learn that Town and County officials in attendance fully supported the Duane Lake Association position and so retreated for about six months to re-think their recommendations.

• Now they’re back.

    That’s “where we’re at.”

    Where will you be Thursday night?

    Can you be there?

    Can you be there to show DEC and all the assembled local, county, and state officials that we care about water quality for Duane Lake and 50,000 downstream users of our water? That we care about fairness? About changing the “Gerrymandered” eligibility map that included the entire Normans Kill watershed, but carefully carved Duane Lake out of it?

    Or be there to listen and – perhaps? maybe? – be pleasantly surprised?

    So, please – even if you’ve never had the slightest interest in civic affairs, now is the time to help make an impact for your neighborhood. Grab your husband, your wife, your partner, your significant other, granny and grandpa and the neighbors, too, and make the short drive to the Town Hall. And please send us an email to let us know you will be there (and how many).

    This is what democracy looks like. It only works when people show up.

    Thursday, February 26, 7:00 p.m.