Cross-border skirmish: Canadian senator knocks Cuomo for lake-level rhetoric

Show Caption Hide Caption Aerials give a powerful view of flooding D&C Digital reporter Todd Clausen took to the skies to survey the damage the high waters have done.

A Canadian senator is lobbing barbs across Lake Ontario over criticism of the lake-level regulation known as Plan 2014.

In remarks to that nation's Parliament on Thursday, Bob Runciman, a senator from the province of Ontario, called out New York politicians who have blamed Plan 2014 for the historic high lake levels and ongoing flooding as “fear-mongers.”

He held out Gov. Andrew Cuomo for particular scorn, accusing him of "playing the blame game and spreading falsehoods."

Cuomo and U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, a particularly vociferous critic of Plan 2014, said Thursday afternoon that Runciman was all wet.

Many Rochester-area residents of the Lake Ontario shoreline have blamed Plan 2014, which went into effect in January, for the lake's high water. That cry has been picked up by a number of political leaders in New York in recent weeks.

The plan, developed over a 16-year period, is intended to restore wetlands and animal habitat by allowing the lake level to follow a more natural high-and-low cycle.

But officials who oversee lake-level regulation and other observers say the new plan was not designed to allow the lake to reach the level it has, and could not be blamed for the flooding and erosion that has taken place.

As Runciman put it Thursday in his speech in Parliament, "heavy snow melt and runoff, along with record rainfall in both April and May," were responsible.

Runciman represents a district that includes the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence, which also is suffering from high water this spring. A member of Canada's Conservative Party, he is a longtime politician who has served in the upper house of Parliament in Ottawa since 2010.

Among the U.S. politicians who have spoken out against Plan 2014 are Collins, R-Clarence, U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, Monroe County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo and Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich.

During a visit to Greece on Memorial Day, Cuomo chimed in.

He did not blame Plan 2014, but he was very critical of the International Joint Commission, the U.S.-Canada treaty organization that developed the plan and oversees water-level regulation.

More: Cuomo offers aid, raps IJC

Cuomo said the IJC had committed a “series of blunders” and had used “flawed” methodology in its response to rising lake levels. He said the appointed IJC members should have ensured that more water was let out of the lake over the winter and the early weeks of March, before heavy rains started to fall the following month.

They also should have communicated more effectively with the public, he said.

“The IJC blew it,” Cuomo told a group of shoreline residents in Greece, drawing applause. "I mean they blew it."

Runciman called the governor’s statement “the worst kind of political distortion and misrepresentation.”

He said a simple phone call to the IJC would have let Cuomo know that the plan “has no impact on how this situation has been handled up to this point.”

The Canadian senator also said members of Congress who represent the Lake Ontario shoreline in the Rochester area — an apparent reference to Collins and Katko — had, in his estimation, made "false claims" about Plan 2014 and are now calling on President Donald J. Trump to nix the deal.

In a statement, Collins said Runciman wasn't seeing the whole picture.

“It's easy for a Canadian official to support Plan 2014 when the bulk of the damage is in western New York. Plan 2014 increases the frequency of raising and lowering the water levels in Lake Ontario, and this fluctuation in levels has proven detrimental to the businesses and homeowners along the shoreline," Collins said. "Higher highs and lower lows have always caused problems and this plan only makes matters worse."

Cuomo spokeswoman Abbey Fashouer said the Canadian lawmaker was wrong to say that New York's governor blamed Plan 2014 for the ills besetting the shoreline — and said Runciman was equally wrong to absolve the IJC of all blame.

"As we have made clear to apparently everyone but Senator Runciman, record precipitation is to blame for the extreme water levels on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, not Plan 2014," Fashouer said. "The IJC, however, continues its mismanagement and apparent prioritization of shipping interests over residents, which was once again proven today when they failed to increase outflows from Lake Ontario.."

More: Release more water? Not yet.

In a letter to Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland that Runciman also released Thursday, he said U.S. politicians were undermining Plan 2014 and threatening what he called "the second-largest wetlands reclamation project in North American history."

"I would encourage you to communicate the facts about the flooding to your counterparts in the U.S. and to reiterate your support for Plan 2014," his letter concluded.

This isn't Cuomo's first dust-up with officials north of the border. In 2013, he sparred with Canadian members of the bi-national agency that oversees the Peace Bridge in Buffalo.

McDermot@Gannett.com

SOrr@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by Nicole Gaudiano, a correspondent with USA TODAY Network's Washington Bureau.

Chris Collins: No extra money to help towns with lake flooding Rep. Chris Collins was in Hamlin to survey lake flooding damage to homes in Hamlin. (May 30, 2017)