SANDY POND -- At around noon Wednesday, the westerly winds across Lake Ontario hit nearly 60 miles per hour. The result was a fierce assault of waves against the eastern shore. Especially hard hit was the area around Selkirk and Rainbow Shores and Sandy Pond.

For Pete Backus and other residents, it's an all too familiar and worrisome sight because each wave takes with it a tiny piece of their shoreline property. "They're in jeopardy." Backus says of the shoreline camps and homes. He says eventually they could be entirely washed away, "depending on the number of storms and the lake level over a period of time, it's going to happen."

Backus feels he, and others, are fighting two forces, nature and the government. The water level of Lake Ontario is controlled by dams on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The International Joint Commission has been looking for the best way to raise the water level of the lake to help shipping interests, property owners in the Thousand Islands area and environmentalists who want to restore the ecology. Backus is afraid raising the lake any higher, even by just a few inches, would make the wave action during storms even more fierce, leading to even more erosion.

Backus and others say they're having a hard time getting their point across to the International Joint Commission. "There's been public meetings where landowners have come and tried to convey the concern but I'm not really sure they give it a lot of weight."

The International Joint Commission has shelved various proposals to manage the levels of Lake Ontario, giving landowners on the eastern shore a chance to lobby elected officials including Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Dan Maffei. On Thursday, the Rainbow Shores Owners Association will be making a presentation to Senator Daryl Aubertine at his Watertown office.