Published: June 23, 2009 07:53 pm      

Corps engineers will be in town tomorrow

Somerset — Some of the top brass from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be in Somerset Thursday to present a Wolf Creek Dam construction update, and allow time for a question and answer session with marina owners and operators.

Lt. Col. Bernard Lindstrom, commander of the Nashville District; Brigadier General John Peabody, commander of the Corps’ Great Lakes and Ohio River Division; and other Nashville District representatives will gather with marina owners and operators at 1:30 p.m. at Lake Cumberland Resource Manager’s Office, 855 Boat Dock Road. Some marina owners feel they were left hanging out to dry when the lake was lowered to facilitate repairs at the dam.

“This meeting will be a great chance for marina owners to ask questions of the Corps and to voice their concerns directly to us,” said Lindstrom. The meeting is part of a visit to Wolf Creek Dam and Lake Cumberland by Peabody.

J.D. Hamilton, owner of Lee’s Ford Marina Resort, recently told the Commonwealth Journal the low level of Lake Cumberland has cost him $2.5 million during the past two years and he claims the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is ignoring his pleas for assistance.

“It is just flat wrong ... it is unjust,” said Hamilton. “I have a partner (Corps) who will not take responsibility for the damages they have caused me.” He projects his losses will reach $4.5 million by the time the dam is repaired in 2012.

Hamilton says few people are aware he pays $230,000 a year in rent to operate the marina on the Fishing Creek section of Lake Cumberland. In addition, Hamilton said he has been responsible for moving the marina when the lake level was dropped more than 40 feet in early 2007.

“My cash flow was cut in half the first year the lake was lower,” said Hamilton. “We’ve recovered some since then,” he said. However, he said his business was increasing at the rate of 33 percent a year prior to problems at the dam.

Also, according to Hamilton, the operator is responsible for infrastructure and maintenance of the marina. “The Corps built the parking lot before I got here (five years ago), that’s all.”

“I had faith in the U.S. Government when I signed that contract (50-year lease to operate the marina). No entity should behave this way ... I have been forced to borrow $1.5 million from the SBA (Small Business Administration). I have to pay that back.”

Gigi and Willy Zink, owners of Buck Creek Omega Park Marina, are equally frustrated because they say they have gotten no help since flash flooding in Eastern Kentucky this spring sent a wall of water into the lake, ripping their marina apart and breaking loose several boats.

The Zinks, who have owned the marina for 27 years, moved the dock from Buck Creek to Omega Park about two years ago after the lake was lowered. The move was necessary to get to deeper water after their original location at the end of Ky. 769 was left high and dry by the lower lake level.

Fifth District Congressman Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, and Congressman Ed Whitfield, who represents several counties in the Lake Cumberland area, have recently introduced legislation designed to aid marina operators whose operations have been adversely affected by the low lake level. The congressmen apparently are responding in part to resolutions of complaints from local governments in the area that the low water level has hurt the economy in the Lake Cumberland area. A spokeswoman in Rogers’ Washington DC office said the bill has been referred to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Wolf Creek Dam is undergoing a $584 rehabilitation to permanently stop uncontrolled seepage that had put the structure in “high risk” of failure. The repair project is scheduled for completion in October 2012.