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SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A proposal to regulate water levels in the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario is the "best option at this time" to safeguard the environment while protecting commercial and residential interests, members of the International Joint Commission said Friday.

The IJC, an independent U.S.-Canadian organization that regulates transboundary waters, said its plan balances all interests.

But even before the proposal was made public, it came under attack from environmentalists and state and federal officials.

They said it would foster greater environmental damage than the current 52-year-old management plan to regulate flows on the St. Lawrence River through the dam between Cornwall, Ont., and Massena, N.Y.

Jim Tierney, of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said IJC program has been an ecological disaster for Lake Ontario and upper St. Lawrence for years and the new proposal won't help.

The current management plan was last amended in 1956.

"We currently have a perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the ecology and aquatic habitat of Lake Ontario ... this (plan) will set us back further," said Tierney

In 2006, the IJC was presented with three plan options based on a five-year study conducted by the binational Lake Ontario/St. Lawrence River Study Board.

The so-called A+ plan provided the maximum economic advantages, while the B+ plan offered the most environmental benefits. A third plan blended the benefits of both.

The so-called 2007 plan presented Friday by the IJC during a news conference in Cornwall is a hybrid of the third plan and is similar to the existing water management plan, which seeks to reduce the occurrence of extreme high and low water levels.

"We believe this is the best plan we can implement at this time," said Irene Brooks, U.S. chairwoman for the IJC.

The IJC will hold hearings on its proposal during a 90-day public comment period.

Spokesman Frank Bevacqua said the IJC would then seek agreement with the U.S. and Canadian governments before making a final decision, which it expects to do by the end of the year.

According to the IJC, Plan 2007 would result in significant increases in hydropower production, greater wetland plant diversity along the shores of Lake Ontario, fewer delays due to strong currents for ships in the St. Lawrence Seaway, and more reliable shipping depths for Montreal Harbour.

The commission also said the plan would reduce damages to shoreline properties by as much as $5.5 million yearly by keeping water levels slightly higher during the summer and lowering it in the spring and fall.

Brooks also noted that for the first time, the proposed plan would regulate flows to benefit the environment and recreational boating, as well as other interests.

The DEC prefers the B+ plan, which was developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and has the support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as environmental groups, Tierney said.

The DEC and environmentalists would prefer a management plan that returns to a more natural water cycle, similar to what existed before hydroelectric dams were built on the river.

The unnatural water flow levels created under the existing plan have resulted in the degradation of 33,000 acres of wetlands, which have turned from biodiverse marshes into thick cattail monoculture systems, Tierney said.

The projected cost of damage on the shoreline properties and the expected increase in maintenance expenditures that would be involved in Plan B+ would be a small price to restore the environment, said Jennifer J. Caddick, executive director of Save the River, an environmental group.

"Plan 2007 represents business as usual ... The IJC has turned its back on the environment by proposing a plan that continues, and perhaps even worsens, the environmental destruction of the lake and river," Caddick said.