Lakes Management Advisory Committee
September 2003 Issues
1) Birchwood Dam work.
The Borough Manager has conducted extensive discussion of the Birchwood Dam project with Crystal Lake residents.
Drawing Crystal down 6’ would significantly lower the project cost and
cut the project time. (No need to build
large coffer dam.)
The impact on lake property owners is obvious.
The largest negative issue is the possibility of insufficient rain to
bring Crystal Lake back up in a year or even two.
The project has been
changed to pump water from Crystal up to Birchwood and down to Sunset to store
some of the water from the drawdown.
This will minimize the length of time Crystal is down. Water can be pumped back when the dam work
is done.
● This will
minimize disruption.
● The project
cost can be kept to approximately $250,000.
2) The
lakes cleaning schedule will be changed around the dam work. Crystal will be cleaned while the lake is
down rather than cleaning the Canal in the same period.
3) Allied Biological,
Mountain Lakes’ water management service provider, reported that fecal
coliform spiked occasionally during August.
With all the rain, there were visible erosion tracks on the beaches,
pushing waterfowl feces into the lakes.
The Borough Manager commented that the lifeguards will be cleaning the
beach perimeters next year as well as the beach itself.