Furnace Dock Lake Close to Salvation

After months of negotiations, Consolidated Edison has agreed to pay for the repair of the dam at Furnace Dock Lake and to sign the deed of the lake over to the Town in exchange for a purchase price of approximately $300,000 (the final figure is not yet determined). The agreement was reached in late December, after Con Ed had originally backed out of a similar contract reached earlier in 2010. The new agreement includes several built-in contingencies and Con Ed said it will take the deal off the table if it is not signed by Feb. 16, reported Puglisi at the Cortlandt Town Board Work Session on Feb. 7.

“We are trying to do everything we can to save the lake,” said Puglisi.

The town is not legally allowed to use general funds or to tax all residents for an area that only affects a small portion of the community, so the town has proposed setting up a park district to pay for the purchase price and maintenance. The district would be comprised of the approximately 50 to 60 houses in the lake area. Property owners will be taxed different amounts based on an assessment of their homes and property.

 “The town will borrow money with 20-year bond; once the bond is paid the tax is finished,” said Town Attorney Tom Wood.

Wood said he does not expect the annual tax to exceed more than $1,000 per property. Supervisor Puglisi is looking for available grant money to help offset the cost.

The Town hired engineers to investigate the state of the dam and review Con Ed’s assessment and plan to repair the 100-year-old structure. The engineers determined that the electric company’s repair plans reach the town and the Department of Environmental Conservation’s standards. 

“We will send a letter to all the residents,” said Puglisi. “We will also be asking the developers who have been planning to build on the lake to make a contribution.” The lake’s presence increases the value of their planned development, said the Supervisor.

A public hearing on the park district will be scheduled for March. “If resident’s feel they can’t afford it, then it can’t happen,” said Puglisi, explaining what happens if those in the proposed park district vote against it.

“Then Con Ed will decommission the dam, turning it into a stream and into a muddy watershed,” she said.

The SAVE the Lake campaign, spearheaded by the Town and concerned community members, has been working to protect the lake and its ecosystem, about a 12-acre area, for the last nine months. A Task Force was formed over the summer. Puglisi said that the about five of the total ten members of the Task Force who met to discuss the agreement were supportive of the terms.

Con Ed has owned the lake, dam and area around it since the mid-1900s when it purchased the acreage from a railroad company. Since then, its power lines have run through the area and the dam has fell into an environmental hazard, according to a DEC assessment in 2009, which declared the dam a threat to the environment. Rather than pay to repair the dam, Con Ed decided to drain the lake and destroy the dam, which outraged the community and the Town Board, who see the lake as a valuable eco-system and asset to Cortlandt.

“We then retained an environmental consultant to do inventory of natural habitat to prove to Con Ed that the lake needs to be preserved and not drained,” said Puglisi in a January interview.

In March 2009 Con Ed said it would fix the dam, but later reversed its decision. Since then, the town has been working to protect the lake. In November the electric company told Puglisi that it would be destroying the dam, but negotiations between the town and the company have led to Con Ed’s most recent offer, which Supervisor Puglisi sees as acceptable. The contingencies included in the deal leave the final decision up to the community.

Read Supervisor Puglisi's update here.