BERNE — The Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to extend the dam repair permit held by the Helderberg Lake Association, which had an original deadline of October, 2023. 

The extension will give the association until March 2026 to find funding to repair the high-hazard dam that keeps in the water that makes up the man-made lake. The dam has been out of compliance structurally since 2018, and the DEC has told The Enterprise that the dam could be removed if it’s deemed unsafe, turning the lake into a wetland.

The term high-hazard refers to the level of damage that is expected if the dam were to fail, not the likelihood of failure. 

The association has struggled to get funding to repair the dam, and has been on its own since the Berne Town Board voted against establishing a special tax district over the lake community to gather the funding. The original repair estimate was around $500,000.

Some community members felt they wouldn’t be able to afford their share of the repair costs, while others believed that they didn’t get enough benefit from the lake to justify their share. Supporters of the tax district — who made up about 71 percent of the community, according to a petition — had argued that not repairing the dam would put lives and property at risk. 

An April inspection of the dam by the DEC found all the same deficiencies and, although the report noted that the “appearance of the dam did not necessarily reflect an unchanging condition,” kept the condition rating at Unsound — Fair, meaning that the dam is expected to perform normally under average conditions, but that extreme weather could cause failure. 

As was the case during a 2018 inspection, the dam still has an inadequate spillway and inadequate slope stability. Other deficiencies listed were seepage, surface deterioration, voids, cracking, and movement/misalignment.

The report notes that the permit was issued “to rehabilitate the dam’s downstream slope, repair the concrete wall, increase the height of the concrete core wall, patch the service spillway, and fill the low-level outlet and install a permanent 16-inch [high-density polyethylene] siphon pipe.”

When asked about the potential for the dam’s removal, a DEC spokesperson said, “The dam owners have not pursued draining the lake or removing the dam. DEC has not required the dam’s removal to date.”

Association member Lorraine Emerick, who is the contact listed on the association’s website, did not respond to Enterprise inquiry.