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Unusually high water in Cayuga Lake is worrisome for anyone with lakefront property.  It is especially bad for residents of Ladoga Park, a neighborhood just south of Lansing's Myers Park.  But Ladoga Park Road wasn't the only property covered with water this week.  Water levels rose so high that the decision was made Monday to close all of Myers Park, only days after the marina was closed.

"There is a lot of debris floating around," says Park Superintendent Steve Colt.  "Nobody in their right mind ought to be out there anyhow, because the floating trees are really dangerous, and a lot of debris washes down the tributaries."

The flooding comes at a time when Colt should have been celebrating.  Over the winter Town Highway Department employees gave the marina a major face lift, repairing a deteriorating retaining wall and putting in all new docks and services.  On a positive note, Colt says that the flood waters rose so high that you could see that all the new docks were at the same level, a testament to the high quality of work the Highway Department did.


He also says that the brand new docks will minimize the damage because they are stronger than the aging docks they replaced.  And the fact that no boats were in the marina yet was a blessing.  Colt says that when boats are tied to the docks when the water level rises it can pull the dock out of the marina.

"It can easily lift a dock from the buoyancy of the boat," he says.  "Luckily for us this is an early event and we only had one boat down there.  So we don't have to worry about all our new docks being damaged by boats pulling them up."

One boat was in the marina, but a call from Colt alerted the owner, who took it out of the water Monday morning.  By that time the boat launch was entirely covered in water, which obscured the fact that a boat launch was even there.  Piles of debris were washing up in the area near the rest rooms building, and the swimming area beach was completely covered with water and branches.  Most dramatically, Myers Point was missing.  Fence posts rose from the water and a large kiosk that tells about native birds appeared to be planted in the middle of the lake.


Last Friday Sheriff Ken Lansing declared a no wake zone in the inlet and within 1000 feet of the shore line.  But by Wednesday the situation worsened.  Lansing closed the lake to all motorized boat traffic within Tompkins County, extending the restriction at least through today (Friday, 5/6).  Lansing said that despite the flood warning being lifted, high water levels are expected to take several days to recede.

"Due to the extremely high water level, the lake poses a danger to boaters as well as to property and business owners along our shorelines," Lansing said in a media release Wednesday morning.  "In addition to dangerous debris in the water, any resulting wake from motorized boats could cause property damage for property owners. This restriction will remain in effect until further notice."

This week wasn't the first time Myers Park has been closed due to flooding.  The worst incident was in the early '70s, a flood that caused an enormous amount of property damage at Ladoga Park.  Colt recalls being in high school at the time, visiting a friend and classmate there.

"We were trying to chase the carp out of the living room," he recalls.  "That's how high the water was.  The fish were right in his house."


That flood caused so much damage to docks and and the bulkhead at the marina in Myers Park that FEMA provided federal funds to help restore them.  In the '80s another flood was bad enough that Myers Park had to be closed.

"These are things, unfortunately, that we have seen before," Colt says.  "You do the things you have to do to keep peoples' property as protected as you can.  And that includes the park property."

It is too early to know what this flood will cost the Town.  On Monday Colt said that an access road near the kayak/canoe racks is gone, and the high amount of debris will mean many man-hours of clean-up.

"One thing we noticed that I haven't seen in a really long time is that the erosion of the beach area, north of the swim area," he says.  "Then over in the A parking lot where the kayak and canoe racks are -- that is missing.  The whole point is gone.  And the little access road that went out between the pavilion and Salmon Creek -- the only way to access that lot is gone.  When the water goes down it's going to have to be reconstructed so we can utilize that parking lot."


Cayuga Lake water levels are controlled by opening and closing locks at the north end of Cayuga Lake.  The water drains from there into the Seneca River, which eventually takes it into Lake Ontario.  But officials must manage how much and how often they open the locks to prevent flooding the areas along the Seneca River and manage the impact on hydroelectric plants.

Even with the locks open it will take several days for the waters to recede.  Colt says that if it becomes windy more damage from debris can be expected, and that could bring the level of damage to the point where FEMA could become involved again.  But Colt remains optimistic.

"I certainly hope it doesn't come to that this time," he says.  "And it shouldn't, because the docks are brand new and pretty stable.  And they didn't have any boats tied to them.  It's just going to be a cleanup period.  That's all there is to it."

Meanwhile, the park remained closed throughout this week.  There is no word on when it will reopen.

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