Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – The Erie Canal completed its 190th season on Wednesday. Many tugboats, tenders, barges and other canal equipment will spend the winter in Albion between the two lift bridges on Main Street and Ingersoll Street.
The top photo was taken on Tuesday and shows two of the tenders in Albion.
This photo was taken this morning looking west towards the Allen’s Bridge Road canal bridge in Albion.
Photos by Katlyn Moore
BARRE – Katlyn Moore was astonished this morning in Barre when a baby Red-tailed Hawk landed on her front porch only about 3 feet away. She snapped these photos at about 10:20 a.m.
“It only stuck around for a few seconds and left,” she said. “One of the most amazing things I have seen.”
Photo courtesy of Henrietta Helsdon
YATES – Last winter there were numerous sightings of Snowy Owls in Orleans County. At least one has already been sighted with a new winter looming.
Henrietta Helsdon took this photo of a Snowy Owl today in the Town of Yates on Route 63 in the area known as the Shadigee.
The owl has a wingspan of five feet. It nests in the Arctic tundra and winters south through Canada. Usually there aren’t too many sightings in the United States.
Photo by David Rotoli
ALBION – A black bear created a stir on Route 31 on Thursday afternoon when it crossed the road heading north, about a half mile east of Riches Corners Road.
David Rotoli and his wife Shari just happened to be driving by at about 5:30. They and other motorists pulled over to take pictures.
“It meandered across the road,” Mrs. Rotoli said. “It was awesome.”
There have been numerous bear sightings in the county this year, but this may be the closest to the village.
People should be cautious if they see the bear. A bear isn’t expected to attack, but if it feels cornered or threatened, it could be aggressive, said Tom Roster, manager of the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.
File photo by Tom Rivers – This photo was taken in October 2013 from a sailboat on Lake Ontario.
KNOWLESVILLE – One of the members of a binational board charged with managing the water levels in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River system believes a proposal backed by the majority of the board will result in flooding on the southshore.
Frank Sciremammano, a professor of mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, has voiced his concerns about Plan 2014 and what he sees as an unfair burden put on southshore property owners.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea and I’ve been fighting it,” Sciremammano said Wednesday when he was in Orleans County. He has been hired as a consultant to help six southshore counties come out with a dredging and harbor maintenance plan.
Sciremammano said the International Joint Commission, which is tasked with regulating the water levels, should ensure that no one group or geographic area bears a disproportionate loss. The new plan would concentrate damage to the south shore of the lake, he said.
“Quebec said no more damage so the damage and flooding will shift to the southshore,” Sciremammano said.
Orleans and other southshore counties are trying to thwart the plan. It has been approved by the IJC, but needs the backing from both countries.
“Where it goes, no one knows,” Sciremammano said.
For more on the IJC, visit www.ijc.org.
File photo – The dredging barge is near the breakwall at the end of the Oak Orchard channel when the harbor was dredged in August for the first time in 10 years.
KNOWLESVILLE – For much of the last five years Orleans County officials waited and begged to have the Oak Orchard Harbor dredged of silt and sediment. The harbor was finally dredged in August, when federal funds from Superstorm Sandy were directed to the Oak Orchard Harbor.
Congress hasn’t set aside money on a regular basis to clean out recreational harbors like the Oak Orchard. During low lake level years boats can run aground in the harbor. That happened to the Oak Orchard in 2012.
A clogged harbor makes the county’s fishing and recreational boating industries vulnerable. The harbor generates $7,087,101 in economic activity for the county, resulting in 117 direct and indirect jobs. It also yields $283,484 in sales tax revenue for the county with the same sales tax for the state, according to a consultant, Frank Sciremammano of FES Environmental and Marine Consultants.
Sciremammano has worked with six southshore counties on a plan for regular harbor maintenance and dredging. The Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging the Genesee River and the Port of Oswego, which are both commercial harbors, but the recreational harbors have languished.
To ensure regular dredging, Sciremammano is suggesting the counties form an authority or local development corporation that would buy dredging equipment, apply for dredging permits and get the work done.
The Army Corps would still do the Genesee River and Oswego, but the other 17 harbors would be handled by the counties.
That plan would require $522,403 annually with the Orleans County share at $23,655. Sciremammano suggested counties pay half of the costs out of county budgets with increased boater registration fees covering the other half. Vessels up to 16 feet would pay $3.13 more a year for its boater fee, while boats 17 to 26 feet would pay $10.42 more and boats over 26 feet would pay $15.63 annually.
“I don’t think it’s excessive,” Sciremammano told about a dozen officials during a meeting about the dredging plan. “I think boaters wouldn’t mind paying it if they knew their harbor would be open.”
Photo by Tom Rivers – Frank Sciremammano, a consultant for the southshore counties with a dredging plan, discusses scenarios for keeping 19 harbors open during a meeting Wednesday at the Orleans County Cornell Cooperative Extension. Orleans County Legislator Ken DeRoller, left, and Niagara County Legislator David Godfrey attended the session.
Orleans and Niagara officials have already started pursuing help from the federal government for the upfront costs of purchasing equipment. Buying a suction dredge, a barge with a shovel or crane, plus a scow to haul away the sediment could cost about $1.2 million.
The counties could pursue buying the equipment, or they could opt to manage the permits and hire contractors for the work, but that would be at a higher cost about $650,000 to $900,000 annually, rather than the $522,403 if the authority or LDC did the work.
The total economic impact of the 19 harbors is $94 million and supports 1,350 jobs, according to the report.
The Genesee River and Oswego should have annual dredging, but other harbors, such as Oak Orchard, need to be done about once every six years, Sciremammano said. If the counties owned the equipment or hired contractors that schedule could be accelerated if needed.
The southshore counties have been working on the dredging plan since 2010. The state Department of State provided a $35,000 grant for the project, with Wayne Hale of Orleans County taking the lead in the effort.
“We want a sustainable maintenance plan for the harbors,” said Hale, the county’s tourism and planning director.
There will be another meeting about the dredging plan at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at the Sodus Point Village Hall.
“The goal is for a sustainable ongoing plan that we can count on,” Sciremammano said. “We’re trying to head those problems off.”
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand visited the Lake Ontario community of Oswego on Monday and urged Congress to pass new legislation to ban plastic microbeads in personal care products.
Plastic microbeads are found in personal care products like facial scrubs, body washes, hand cleansers and toothpaste. These products are designed to be rinsed down the drain, but the microbeads are too small to be captured by wastewater treatment plants. They are subsequently found in large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, where they concentrate toxins and can be ingested by birds and fish, posing serious environmental and health risks.
Recent reports identified thousands of plastic particles per square kilometer in Lake Erie and up to 1.1 million particles per square kilometer in Lake Ontario. This could have a devastating effect on the Great Lakes fish populations, hurting the $7 billion recreational fishing industry, tourism industry, and the general economic well-being of the entire region.
“We have to make sure that Congress passes this ban on microbeads, because microbeads have already caused significant ecological damage to the Great Lakes region, and they will continue to do so until they are removed from the marketplace,” Gillibrand said.
The state of Illinois has already banned plastic microbeads in consumer products, with legislation being considered in New York, Ohio, and California. Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has spearheaded efforts in New York to ban the beads, and released a report finding that up to 19 tons of plastic microbeads wash down drains each year and into New York’s waterways.
They can last for decades, and when found in oceans and lakes, pose environmental and health risks because of the pollutants they can attract and carry. Wildlife and aquatic animals ingest the beads, which causes internal issues and exposure to concentrated levels of toxins.
“These plastic particles fill the water, attract pollutants, and harm not only fish and birds, but the people in this region who rely on them for food and wellbeing,” Gillibrand said. “Banning harmful plastic microbeads is the best solution to this damaging environmental problem.”
Photos by Tom Rivers
CARLTON – Rush Outdoors, a TV series on hunting and fishing, filmed at the Oak Orchard River today on what was a perfect day for footage. Temperatures were in the mid-50s, leaves gently fell from trees, and fishermen were catching big fish left and right.
Tim Andrus of Kent is host of Rush Outdoors, which appears on seven networks in New York, northern Pennsylvania and southern Ontario. Andrus is pictured doing a segment for the show. Brian Kirby is the cameraman.
Kirby and Andrus marveled at the action on the river today. Anglers in one five-minute span landed a steelhead, a brown trout and a Chinook salmon.
Orleans County is a sponsor for the show and a 30-second commercial is featured during shows. The county is also listed on the Rush Outdoors web site (Click here).
Andrus and Kirby were at the Oak today filming an episode for season four of the show. It will air next year. When Rush Outdoors started, Orleans County was one of the first sponsors of the show. Mike Waterhouse, the county’s sportsfishing promotion coordinator, said it has proven a good partnership and helped to raise the profile for the county’s fishery.
“Since I grew up here, I was adamant we needed to promote Orleans County,” Andrus said. “We have such a great fishery here.”
Today’s weather will make for great TV. Andrus and the crew also filmed a show this summer when charter boat captains took Vietnam War veterans out on the lake. The weather that day was horrible, with rain and fog.
Rush Outdoors promotes the Great Outdoors in New York, with a focus on hunting and fishing. Andrus juggles being host of the show with his job as a corrections officer at the Orleans Correctional Facility in Albion.
The show sometimes will leave New York for hunting trips. Andrus last week was in Wyoming for a show on mule deer. He also hosted shows this year in Manitoba and North Dakota.
Carlos Ferley of West Virginia poses with a steelhead he caught today at the Oak Orchard River.
Photo by Tom Rivers – The Presbyterian Road bridge in Albion, built in 1909 over the canal when it was widened, is one of the many features of the canal that remain from the widening about a century ago.
The New York State Barge Canal was given lofty status today when the National Park Service announced the Barge Canal is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Erie Canal opened in 1825. The Barge Canal represents the widening of the canal between 1905 and 1918. Many of the bridges, guard gates, waste weir systems and other canal infrastructure remain in use today.
“This recognition from the highest levels of our nation reminds us once again of the essential role New York State and its waterways have played in our country’s development and prominence,” said Mike Caldwell, regional director for the National Park Service’s Northeast Region. “On behalf of the National Park Service, I am honored to recognize the New York State Barge Canal’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a nationally significant, historic transportation icon.”
The New York State Barge Canal National Register Historic District spans 450 miles and includes the four branches of the state’s canal system: the Erie, Champlain, Oswego, and Cayuga-Seneca canals.
The nomination evaluated 791 features and included 552 contributing structures and buildings.
Photo by Chris Busch – The lift bridge in Medina was built in 1914. It’s one of seven lift bridges in Orleans County, the most of any county on the canal.
“The Barge Canal includes some of the nation’s most recognized waterways and is a New York gem,” U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement. “Spanning the Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, Champlain Canal and Cayuga-Seneca Canal, the Barge Canal is a true historic destination. I am pleased the National Park Service has granted this designation, which will help preserve the Barge Canal and expand opportunities for local developments in the area.”
Congress in 2000 declared the canal as a National Heritage Corridor, one of 49 such areas in the country. When the 363-mile-long waterway opened in 1825, it transformed Upstate New York into an economic powerhouse, raising the fortunes of canal towns such as Medina, Albion and Holley.
When railroads started to threaten the canal in the mid- to late-1800s, state officials moved to widen and deepen the canal. In 1918, after 13 years of construction, the Barge Canal was born, and many of the structures from that upgrade remain along the system today.
The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor prepared the application for the National Register designation. The Canalway Corridor’s application was 267 pages long and identified 566 contributing structures along the canal that add to the historic significance of the barge system.
In Orleans County, the contributing structures include:
MURRAY – Bennetts Corners Road bridge from 1911; Holley Waste Weir built in 1914; Holley Embankment (the tallest on the system, rising 76 feet above the valley of the East Branch of Sandy Creek); East Avenue Lift Bridge constructed in 1911; Holley Terminal, constructed in 1915 as a 16-foot by 30-foot wood frame freight house;
Guard Gate that is west of North Main Street and constructed 1914; Telegraph Road Bridge built in 1911; Groth Road Bridge built in 1911; Hulberton Road Lift Bridge constructed 1913; Brockville Waste Weir east of Fancher Road Bridge, constructed 1911; Hindsburg Road Bridge constructed 1911; and Transit Road Bridge constructed 1911.
This photo contributed by Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin shows the canal being widened a century ago in Medina.
ALBION – Densmore Road Bridge constructed in 1911; Keitel Road Bridge built in 1912; Butts Road Bridge constructed 1912; Brown Street Bridge from 1912 (includes a sidewalk); Albion Waste Weir off State Street behind Community Action, constructed in 1910; Ingersoll Street Lift Bridge from 1911; Main Street Lift Bridge from 1914;
Albion terminal and shops for Canal Corporation, built in 1917; Lattins Farm Road bridge from 1911; Guard Gates from 1913; Gaines Basin Road bridge from 1912; Eagle Harbor Waste Weir that includes three drain gates, built in 1912; Eagle Harbor Lift Bridge, built in 1910 with a wood frame tower; Allens Bridge Road Bridge built in 1909; and Presbyterian Road Bridge from 1909.
RIDGEWAY – Knowlesville Lift Bridge from 1910 (During a 1975 rehabilitation, the tower was replaced by one-story brick control building on east side at south end of bridge.); Knowlesville Terminal, west of Knowlesville lift bridge, and built in 1910; Culvert Road (This is the only place where a road passes under a branch of the New York State Canal System. There has been a road culvert under the canal here 1823. Stone portals at either end of the enlarged Erie Canal culvert were dismantled and re-erected when it was extended to its current 200-foot length as part of Barge Canal construction, according to the Barge Canal application to the state.);
Beals Road Bridge from 1909; Bates Road Bridge constructed in 1914; Guard Gate, west of Bates Road bridge, and constructed in 1914; Pleasant Street/Horan Avenue Bridge built in 1914; Oak Orchard Creek Aqueduct, constructed in 1914. (The Oak Orchard Creek span is the only true aqueduct on the Barge Canal system. The structure consists of a concrete arch over Oak Orchard Creek at the head of Medina Falls with concrete walls on either side of the channel.)
Medina Terminal, a 24- by 70-foot frame freight house constructed in 1916; Eagle Street/Glenwood Avenue Bridge, constructed 1914; Prospect Avenue/ Route 63 Lift Bridge, built in 1914; Marshall Road Bridge from 1909; and a Guard Gate near Middleport, from 1913.
Bob Radliff, director of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, said the new recognition for the Barge Canal will boost the efforts to promote the Canal Corridor as a world-class destination and foster “vibrant communities connected by our waterways.”
Provided photo – Wildlife refuge specialist Megan Davis took this photo of a bear at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge on Oct. 9. The bear has been spotted numerous times west of Route 63.
BASOM – A black bear has been spotted multiple times at the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. There is even a photo from wildlife specialist Megan Davis to prove the bear has been on the refuge.
Refuge staff and visitors have seen bear tracks and some people have said they saw a bear in past years. But this may be the first time there have been multiple sightings of the same bear, said Tom Roster, refuge manager.
The bear has been spotted west of Route 63 on the Kanyoo Trail. Residents also have said they saw a bear nearby at the Tonawanda Indian Reservation. Roster said it could be the same animal.
“We’ve been getting more and more sightings,” he said this afternoon. “We’ve had multiple sightings within 10 days.”
Roster said refuge visitors should be cautious if they see the bear. The bear isn’t expected to attack, but if it feels cornered or threatened, it could be aggressive, he said.
“You should always be careful around wild animals,” Roster said.
Photos by Tom Rivers
CARLTON – The St. Mary’s Archer’s Club on the Oak Orchard River in Carlton welcomed 55 participants in the club’s annual fly fishing tournament from Wednesday through Friday.
These anglers are pictured on Friday afternoon along the river. Out-of-state participants came from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island and New Jersey.
The catch-and-release tournament gives prizes for the biggest Chinook salmon, brown trout, Atlantic salmon and steelhead.
Photos by Tom Rivers
CARLTON – This is my favorite time of the fall foliage phenomenon, when about half the leaves are still on the trees and the rest have left a colorful blanket on the ground.
I stopped by the Archer’s Club along the Oak Orchard River on Friday. A winding dirt road off Clark Mills Road leads down to the river.
Some of the trees have sprouted high by the banks of the road, letting photographers look straight up, even showing some of the roots.
There is a ravine-like formation next to the winding dirt road. I ventured into the path for this picture.
Photos by Tom Rivers
MEDINA – After a drizzly morning, the sun came out and the temperatures warmed up after noon today.
Colleen Schwartzmeyer of Bergen was in Medina at State Street Park with her daughters, Auburn, 11, and Mabel, 5. They were visiting a friend in Medinaon the Columbus Day holiday. They had some extra time when they arrived in Medina and decided to go to the park.
Auburn and Mabel try to teeter-totter at the park.
The leaves are changing colors, from green to yellow, orange and red at the park.
Many of the leaves have already fallen off the trees.
Photos by Tom Rivers
WATERPORT – There are a lot of vehicles in Carlton with license plates from Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states outside New York.
Many of those visitors are in town trying to catch some of the Chinook salmon on their annual spawning run up the Oak Orchard River and other Lake Ontario tributaries.
There was a crowd of anglers at the Waterport Dam this morning. The parking lot was full by the dam with many of the fishermen having to park along the road.
Shawn Dominikowski, 22, of Horseheads has a salmon on the line. He and his friend Brandon Barnic, 22, left Horseheads at 2 this morning and arrived at about 5 a.m. to claim a spot along the river.
Shawn Dominikowski, left, and Brandon Barnic look over the fish that Dominikowski caught this morning in the Oak Orchard River. It was the first time Dominikowski caught a salmon.
After some safety concerns last fall and earlier this spring, Brookfield Power Company posted some of its property with restricted access. Anglers are banned from standing in the water near the power plant.
They can stand in some sections of the water as long as they are wearing a personal flotation device.
These two fishermen both travelled from Central Pennsylvania to fish at the Oak Orchard. They arrived on Thursday and are staying until Sunday. D.R. Bubb is at left with his friend Tom Rager. They have both been catching their limit of three salmon each day.
They’ve been to Orleans County to fish each the past five years. They like the thrill of reeling in a 30-pound salmon.
“They’re very strong fish,” Rager said. “It’s so much fun hooking into one of them.”
Photos by Tom Rivers
HOLLEY – The leaves are starting to change near the Holley Waterfalls, making one of the area’s nicest natural attractions even more appealing.
I would highly recommend a visit during October. You can reach the waterfalls by turning onto Frisbee Terrace off Route 31 in the Public Square. Follow Frisbee Terrace past Save-A-Lot and the village’s DPW garage.
The waterfalls seem to burst out of a hill in a wooded area. The east branch of Sandy Creek flows under the canal and then tumbles down the falls in this spot.
The site includes a pedestrian bridge over the creek leading to a picnic area.
