Homeowners Wage War Against Dam Operator Over Lake Levels

There’s not much friendship these days on Friendship Lake.

Homeowners who live on the 125-acre impoundment of the Little Roche-A-Cri Creek in Adams County are waging a pitched battle against the man who operates the dam their lake depends on.

The homeowners, through the municipal Friendship Lake District, are trying to take the dam away from Chuck Pheiffer by condemning it through eminent domain. Pheiffer says they are trying to steal his property.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, meanwhile, has threatened to drain the lake because of safety concerns over the dam.

Pheiffer bought the dam from the Village of Friendship in 1985 for $1,000. He is now trying to sell it to the Lake District for $1.2 million. The group wants to give him $110,000.

Pheiffer, a thin, 70-year-old man with a ponytail, stood on top of his dam, looking down at the water rushing through the gates during a recent interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

“Yeah, I bought this dam 35 years ago.” he said. “It was a wreck. It cost me a fortune to fix it up. I did repairs ad nauseam. And these people say, ‘Well yeah, you only paid $1,000 for it.’ It wasn’t worth any more than that.”

Of his $1.2 million asking price, Pheiffer said, “I’m willing to negotiate always, but quite honestly it is a valid price. Whether I would sell it to them for less would be out of the good graces of my heart.”

But the dam is assessed at $7,000. Claude Riglemon, an assessor who works for Adams County, said “the liabilities associated with that property far exceed its actual value.”

The liabilities became a concern for Pheiffer in 2009, when the DNR changed the way it treats the owners of what it considers to be high-risk dams, where a malfunction could lead to loss of life or property.

Instead of inspecting the dams itself, the DNR forced the owners to pay for inspections.

When that happened, Pheiffer began drawing down the level of the lake, “for safety reasons, and to make the dam a hell of a lot more convenient to run for my purposes.”

‘We Can’t Enjoy The Lake’

Up until then area homeowners were happy with Pheiffer and his stewardship of the lake. But the lower water levels meant they couldn’t use their motor boats and couldn’t maintain the lake by using their weed harvester.

Bob Berry, president of the Friendship Lake District, said Pheiffer’s actions are hurting not just the homeowners, but the entire region.

“Most people probably in a 20-mile radius of this lake learned how to fish, learned how to swim, learned how to water ski on this lake. To me, this lake is a very big part of this community,” Berry said.

Berry walked down the steps of his manicured lawn to the lakeshore, and pointed to his pier, which was high and dry extending out onto mudflats.

Berry said every weekend, “Mr. Pheiffer will open the gates to drain the water down. Most of us residents, in my opinion, feel he’s doing it to just kind of screw with us so we can’t get our boats in. We can’t enjoy the lake.”

When asked why, Berry replied, “Spite. He feels he has power over us because he’s the owner of the dam and he can do what he wants to do. And he’s pissed because we wouldn’t purchase it from him.”

Berry said $1.2 million is too much money.

He said Pheiffer offered to sell the dam to the Lake District several years ago for $250,000. But as Pheiffer tells it, the offer was to give the district the dam for free, in exchange for half of the hydroelectric revenue for 15 years, an amount that would equal about $250,000.

The Friendship Lake District turned Pheiffer’s offer down.

Now, Pheiffer is making it clear he doesn’t care if Berry or his neighbors can’t get their boats in the water.

“A lake that doesn’t generate power and all it does is support high-speed motorboat racing with 200 horsepower boats, it really doesn’t appeal to me at all,” Pheiffer said.

Pheiffer got into the dam business because of a lifelong fascination with green energy. In a small building above the spillway, a generator he built converts the rushing water into hydroelectric power, which he sells back to the power company. Pheiffer said the dam generates about 240,000 kilowatt hours per year.

“When I bought this building it was empty,” Pheiffer said. “There was nothing in it but five 55-gallon drums of DDT which nobody knew what to do with. There were road signs welded over the building, there was no equipment and it was full of lead paint. And I started from there.”

A Question Of Ownership

In July 2016, the DNR sent a letter to Pheiffer and the Village of Friendship asking them to address several safety concerns, or the agency would drain the lake.

“Lake Friendship, created by the Friendship dam, shall be drawn down to the maximum extent possible,” read the order.

The order also contended Pheiffer didn’t actually own the dam, despite having a deed and paying taxes on it for more than 35 years. The DNR said the village didn’t obtain a permit to sell it to him in 1985.

The village and Pheiffer sued the DNR, which has put the order to drain the lake on hold.

“The fundamental question is dam ownership,” said Paul Kent, attorney for the Village of Friendship. “Mr. Pheiffer, in our view, owns the dam.”

“I do own this dam,” Pheiffer said. “Now, if I don’t own it, then nobody owns anything. Period.”

Pheiffer said he has done some of the required safety work, including a study known as a dam failure analysis, but he won’t show it to the DNR.

“You think I’m going to hand them a $17,000 dam failure analysis for free when they say I don’t own it?” Pheiffer asked. “I’d rather burn it.”

The safety concerns came to a head July 8, when torrential rains brought the lake level up to the top of the berm. Bob Berry was suddenly complaining about too much water.

“Most of my pier sections and most of the neighbors’ pier sections, the decking was all floating, scattered around the lake. My boat was all kittywampus,” Berry said.

When Pheiffer arrived and opened the gates, it flooded Friendship Park below the spillway. Berry said it shouldn’t have happened.

“In my opinion it was negligent on his part for not keeping an eye on the levels of the lake,” Berry said.

Pheiffer bristled at the charge.

“Quite honestly some people who don’t know what they’re doing need to keep their mouths shut. The people in the Lake District have never run this dam. They don’t know how to run the dam. I don’t think any of them have ever been to a dam safety seminar. So they don’t know anything,” Pheiffer said.

Public Interest Or Property Theft?

On May 27, the district filed papers to condemn the dam, and take it from Pheiffer for $110,000. They arrived at the figure after getting the assessed value of what they consider to be three comparable dams.

They plan to spend an additional $200,000 on repairs.

The district’s attorney, Mike Hahn, said the use of eminent domain is justified in this case.

“This is a quintessential public purpose,” Hahn said. “You don’t get anything that’s more for the public benefit than public waters.”

Friendship Lake District secretary Karen Pokorny said the district was trying to give Pheiffer a fair price.

“As a lake district, we have a right to do this, and the right is for the greater good,” Pokorny said.

She said property values around Friendship Lake have been falling.

“People have told me that they are not able to sell their homes. And I was also told by one realtor that they don’t even want to list properties in the area,” Pokorny said.

Pheiffer said the lake district is trying to steal his property and take away his hydroelectric business.

When asked if his decision to lower the lake is hurting property values, he said, “I bet it is. And quite honestly they’re the people with the keys and the purse that could rectify it within five minutes.”

As to the condemnation effort, Pheiffer said he, “will bring a vigorous fight to whatever actions they take.”

The DNR refused to comment for this story, citing the ongoing litigation.