LRCWA: Obit and Movie

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by KPW

We are now talking about Winnisquam. As Ursa Minor and I both remember the Cow Island area of Lake Winnipesaukee was and still is clean, although algae and invasive species are encroaching!! I was never at the southern end of the lake as a child, so I cannot comment on that. The far northern area has large logs at the bottom which make the water murky and brown. (Lee's Mill)

Of course I know this is about Winnisquam which was taking the brunt of the raw sewage discharge but it wasn't only Winnisquam that was affected and fixed!

From the DES publication "Winnipesaukee River Basin Program Brochure 2007"...

"Water quality problems in the Lakes Region in the early 1970s
were most acute precisely where existing sewage collection system
discharges were located. Treatment facilities serving these sewer
systems either did not exist—as in the case of Tilton, Northfield
and Franklin’s raw discharges to the Winnipesaukee River—or if
they did, were woefully in need of upgrading and expansion. The
latter was the case with Laconia’s and the State School’s primary
treatment plants, which discharged to Lake Winnisquam, and the
Meredith and Center Harbor treatment plants, which discharged—
after something less than secondary treatment, and with no signifi-
cant removal of nutrients—into Meredith Bay and Center Harbor
Bay, respectively. The areas of Lake Winnipesaukee receiving inad-
equately-treated sewage treatment plant effluent were precisely the
areas with algae problems in the summer requiring the applica-
tions of copper sulfate, although these problems were much less
severe than in Lake Winnisquam.
In addition to these problems, it appeared that the dense devel-
opment on the shoreline of Lake Winnipesaukee in Laconia,
Gilford and Meredith and on Lake Winnisquam in Sanbornton,
Belmont and Tilton, had outpaced the ability of on-site subsurface
systems to accommodate the waste. Similarly, Belmont, which
lacked a sewage collection system, was adversely affecting water
quality in the Tioga River, a tributary of the Winnipesaukee River."

From my own memory the effluent overflow from the camps and motels along what is now scenic drive from what used to be the Chanticleer to West Alton was very prevalent all summer. There was blue hue almost like an oil slick on the water daily especially during the months of July and August. Many camps had no septic and just a 55 gallon drum in the ground or pipe going into a hole! Heavy rains and overuse severely magnified this problem.

Yes in the last 10 years there has been a slight to moderate increase of phosphorous in the lake. My point is, it is no way near the problems the lake had in the 60's and early 70's when no testing was being done.

I know everyone likes to glamorize the past but the FACT is the lake is much cleaner today than it was "back then"...

Believe what you will...

Dan