Today, April 4, 2026, is the deadline.

Sixty days ago, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation issued a formal compliance letter to the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, requiring the agency to submit an engineering assessment plan, an updated Emergency Action Plan, and a status update on long-overdue safety recommendations,  all related to the Martin Dunham Reservoir dam, a structure the state itself classified as Class C – High Hazard back in 2018. It is important to note that there is no formal enforcement mechanism compelling OPRHP to meet that deadline. One state agency cannot compel another. Which means that whether this deadline means anything at all depends entirely on whether the people responsible for managing this dam choose to treat it as binding, and on whether the public holds them accountable when they do not.

This morning, I sent a letter directly to Acting Commissioner Kathy Moser requesting a written accounting of whether OPRHP has met each of those obligations. Eight years have passed since the dam was flagged as a serious risk to downstream residents, their wells, and their fire protection. The money to fix it exists. What has been missing is a decision. The letter is included in its entirety below.

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April 4, 2026

Kathy Moser, Acting Commissioner New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation 625 Broadway Albany, New York 12238

cc: Commissioner Amanda Lefton, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation

Re: DEC 60-Day Compliance Deadline — Martin Dunham Reservoir Dam, Grafton Lakes State Park

Dear Acting Commissioner Moser:

Today, April 4, 2026, marks the expiration of the 60-day deadline issued to your agency by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in its letter of February 3, 2026. I write as organizer of the Save Dunham petition and as a preservationist who has worked since June 2025 to press the state to address this long-neglected safety hazard. I am writing to formally acknowledge that deadline, to request a direct accounting of your agency's response, and to place on record the extraordinary length of time that has passed without action.

Eight Years of Inaction on a High Hazard Dam

In 2018, the NYS DEC designated the Martin Dunham Reservoir dam a Class C – High Hazard structure, the highest risk classification in New York State, citing a failing spillway, observed seepage, and direct downstream exposure to residential wells and fire protection capacity. That designation was not a preliminary finding or a flag for future review. It was a formal determination that this dam posed a significant risk to public safety.

Since that determination, more than 3,000 days have passed. No remediation plan has been issued. No capital funding has been committed. No Engineering Assessment update was completed by the February 2023 deadline your own agency acknowledged. The dam remains rated "Unsound – Deficiency Recognized." The hazard has not diminished. The clock has not stopped.

I do not raise this record as a political complaint. I raise it as the factual baseline against which your agency's response to DEC's February 3rd letter must be measured. Eight years is not a planning delay. It is a failure, one that the Grafton community, the people of Rensselaer County, and the families living downstream deserve to have resolved.

The DEC's February 3, 2026 letter required OPRHP to provide, within 60 days, the following:

A plan and schedule for completing the overdue Engineering Assessment, originally due February 2023; An updated and complete Emergency Action Plan, including a signed promulgation and concurrence form and downstream flood mapping; A formal status update on all previously issued safety recommendations.

I am requesting that OPRHP provide me with a written statement confirming that your agency has met each of these requirements in full. Specifically, I request:

• Has OPRHP submitted a plan and schedule for completing the Engineering Assessment to DEC? If so, what does that schedule commit to and by when? Has OPRHP submitted an updated Emergency Action
  
  
• Plan with all required components, including the signed P&C form and downstream flood mapping? Has OPRHP provided DEC with a status update on prior safety recommendations, and what is the substance of that update? Has the Dunham dam been placed on OPRHP's FY2027 NY Works capital project list? If not, why not, and what is the process for adding it?

The Funding Is Not the Problem

I want to be direct on a point that too often gets lost in these conversations: funding for the rehabilitation of the Martin Dunham Reservoir dam is not hypothetical, and it is not unavailable. Research conducted in connection with this campaign has identified eight viable funding mechanisms across federal grants, federal loans, and state programs, sources for which this dam has genuine, documentable eligibility based on its Class C classification, state ownership, and watershed role.

These include the FEMA Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams program, which provides up to 65% of eligible project costs and requires DEC to apply as the State Administrative Agency, making DEC's engagement not optional but structurally necessary to access this funding. They include the NYS Environmental Bond Act of 2022, under which DEC's own eligibility guidelines explicitly authorize funding for the removal or repair of state-owned dams classified as Class C, High Hazard, with New York State agencies confirmed as eligible applicants. They include the OPRHP NY Works Capital Program with a $200 million FY2027 appropriation for state park infrastructure, and the DEC NY Works Capital Program with a further $90 million. They also include the USDA NRCS Watershed Rehabilitation Program, the Army Corps Water Infrastructure Financing Program, FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, and the NYS Water Quality Improvement Program.

The $494 million in state capital appropriations across the two NY Works lines alone dwarfs the cost estimates on the table: full rehabilitation at $20 million, dam removal with stream restoration at $9.6 million, dam removal without restoration at $6.1 million. The Save Dunham petition has consistently called for full rehabilitation,  the only outcome that preserves this resource for future generations. The funding record supports that outcome. But what the community is asking for today is a decision, not continued delay.

On the Question of Removal and Downstream Consequence

I want to address directly the removal scenarios that appear in the state's own cost estimates, dam removal with stream restoration at $9.6 million, and dam removal without restoration at $6.1 million. These figures have been presented as legitimate alternatives to full rehabilitation. They are not cost-neutral options. They carry consequences that have not, to my knowledge, been publicly analyzed or disclosed. The Martin Dunham Reservoir is a 100-acre impoundment. It does not merely hold water,  it manages it. During periods of sustained rainfall, rapid snowmelt, or significant storm events, that reservoir absorbs and controls runoff volume in ways that a constructed wetland cannot replicate. A wetland is not a dam. This is not a matter of opinion. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's own guidance on dam removal explicitly identifies downstream flood risk assessment as a required component of any removal feasibility study, precisely because the loss of an impoundment changes the hydraulic profile of the watershed. A constructed wetland, however well-designed, operates on infiltration and biological retention,  not volumetric storage. The difference is measurable, and it should be measured before any removal decision is made.

I am therefore asking the state directly: if OPRHP ultimately determines that removal is the preferred course of action, what hydrological analysis has been conducted to model downstream flood risk under high-volume conditions? What assurances can the state provide to the residents, property owners, and municipalities downstream that removal will not transfer the hazard from the dam itself to the land and homes below it? And if downstream flooding occurs following a state-directed removal, who bears responsibility? These are not hypothetical concerns. They are the questions any responsible agency should be able to answer before removal is seriously considered, They are the questions any responsible agency should be able to answer before removal is seriously considered, and the Grafton community, and the communities downstream, deserve to see those answers before a decision is made.

What This Community Deserves

Since June 2025, the residents of Rensselaer County and the Grafton community have engaged this issue with seriousness and good faith. They have attended public meetings, gathered at the reservoir, signed petitions, and engaged their county executive and elected representatives directly. That effort deserves a response in kind, not delay, not reassurance, and not another round of deferred action.

What is being asked is straightforward: confirmation that OPRHP has met its obligations to DEC in full, a clear statement of where the Dunham dam stands in your agency's capital planning, and a timeline for resolution that reflects the urgency this classification has demanded since 2018.

The dam's Class C – High Hazard designation means that the consequences of continued inaction fall not on the agencies responsible for managing it, but on the downstream residents whose wells and fire protection capacity depend on its integrity. That is precisely why the law requires the state to act, and why this campaign will continue to press OPRHP and DEC until it does.

I respectfully request a written response to the questions above no later than April 24, 2026.

Respectfully,

John Bulmer Organizer, 
Save Dunham Petition 
www.SaveDunham.org