Campbell County awaits SML agency invitation

The three counties that border Smith Mountain Lake would like Campbell County to join the commission that lobbies for lake interests, from debris removal to weed control.

The Tri-County Lake Administration represents Bedford, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties as a stakeholder for the lake.

While Campbell County does not border Smith Mountain Lake, it does border Leesville Lake, a holding pond of sorts for the bigger lake and the hydroelectric project there.

The request to join comes as Appalachian Power is negotiating to renew its license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to operate the hydroelectric plant.

Franklin and Pittsylvania counties have already passed resolutions inviting Campbell to join and Bedford County is set to do so later this month, said the commission’s chairman, Chuck Neudorfer, also a Bedford County supervisor representing the Moneta area.

The invitation is expected to personally reach Campbell County supervisors by late July, said County Administrator David Laurrell.

The power company’s current license expires in 2010, said John Shepelwich, a spokesman for AEP. He said the company is hopeful renewal can take place by next year.

Local officials have said they want the updated license to require more “stewardship” of the lake by AEP.

Campbell’s inclusion in the Tri-County Lake Administration could smooth talks with AEP in maintaining Leesville, Neudorfer said. Issues both parties are discussing include debris management, weed removal and maintaining navigation aids.

Michael Lobue, president of the Leesville Lake Association, said Campbell’s addition to TLAC would be fantastic for the lake. It could meet a dual purpose of securing funding sources and providing liability protection, he said.

“We have a constant struggle,” he said, “to get counties to fund our projects.”

Campbell had previously been involved in lake boards prior to the forming of TLAC in 1986, Laurrell said. For the past three years the county has joined the other counties in taking part in a committee overseeing the license renewal, but hasn’t until now considered a permanent union with TLAC.

“We’re waiting to see what the benefits and costs are,” said Laurrell.

Campbell is responsible for 3 percent of shoreline within the Smith Mountain project, Laurell said. Development on Leesville has taken a turn upward, he said, within the past 20 years.

Unlike Smith Mountain Lake, Leesville has no navigation aids to direct boaters.

The lake association is talking with AEP, Lobue said, to install 43 aids. It is encouraging lighted signs on the markers rather than unlighted, he said.

The state has granted $50,000 over the next two fiscal years for the navigation aids, he said.

Meanwhile, TLAC has recently been given a deadline from the U.S. Coast Guard to bring roughly 300 signs that identify navigation aid markers on Smith Mountain Lake up to coast guard standards, said Pam Dinkle, TLAC’s lake management and project coordinator. TLAC and AEP have until 2014 to come to an agreement about upgrades.

“They’ve given us six years,” said Dinkle. “It is undetermined when conversion will begin and who will pay for it.”

TLAC currently maintains navigation markers on Smith Mountain Lake, though that could soon change.

Shepelwich said the company is suggesting in its application with FERC to pay for costs of markers within the navigable waters of both lakes.

“We’re going to wait and see how that plays out,” Neudorfer said.

User-friendly signs currently on the lake don’t meet coast guard standards, Dinkle said, because they were designed for an inland lake rather than “ocean-going vessels.” When they were installed, Dinkle said it was unknown that they must meet coast guard

standards.

Another reason for updating the markers, Shepelwich said, is to bring them in line with sign markers on other popular lakes that boaters are familiar with.

Only signs must be changed, Dinkle said, not the navigation markers themselves.

TLAC is also advertising a request for proposals on a full lake survey to locate aquatic vegetation.

For six years aggressive and invasive vegetation has been spotted in the lake, Dinkle said.

Hydrilla was found last year, which Dinkle said is the worst kind of aggressive vegetation because it consumes large areas of shoreline. TLAC officials funded more than $70,000 to treat it along with curly leaf pondweed, she said.

A new full lake survey, which Dinkle said would be the first in six years, could alert TLAC officials to where harmful vegetation is so they can monitor it.