Sep 21, 2016 3 min read

COKEBURG – Cokeburg Borough is nearly finished draining its former reservoir, where the unsafe dam will be replaced to restore the lake as a destination for fishing.

The borough has a few more feet of water to drain from the lake near Routes 40 and 917 . The fate of the many fish there remained unclear Wednesday.

“It’s a risky bit of business,” said John Poister, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, referring to saving the fish that were stocked in the lake by Ellsworth Sportsmen’s Club.

The DEP more than six years ago ordered Cokeburg to either permanently drain the lake or make repairs to the century-old dam, which the agency said is at risk of failure during a heavy rainstorm.

The replacement project has been scaled back from more than $1.2 million to about $400,000 in a plan approved by the DEP. It involves the construction of a spillway and a new earthen dam in front of the existing dam, using soil and clay that must first be tested and approved by the DEP, Poister said.

“We’ll know more when the water is drawn down,” Poister said Wednesday.

Cokeburg Borough Council President Harry Gorby said the borough has the money to do what is expected by the DEP, and that it’s “our plan to repair that dam.”

Gorby said he was under the impression that the sportsmen’s club, which leases the lake from the borough, had made arrangements to relocate the fish to a pond near Marianna. He said he also was told the fish could survive at the lake site if about 5 feet of water is left in the lake.

Frank Kinney, vice president of the club, said he was unsure about what would happen to the fish.

“Everybody’s welcome to fish,” Kinney said. “The whole thing is terrible to me.”

Gary Guyach, a club member who was fishing at what has become a small fishing hole Wednesday, said the oxygen level in the water was dropping because of silt and a lack of rain.

“It would be a shame to lose another recreational spot for fishing,” said Guyach, of Scenery Hill.

A Cokeburg man who was watching the water drain that morning said the once-beautiful lake is now ugly.

“I grew up here in the 1960s, and we spent the whole summer here swimming, fishing and playing,” Joe Goldesky said.

The above-average temperatures this week are presenting another problem for rescuing the fish, Poister said, because the fish would be more likely to survive a move in cooler weather.

He said the DEP heard there were plans to try to get the fish out of the water.

“If they can’t, they can’t,” Poister said.