DID YOU KNOW
Reports identify problems in the Stockbridge Bowl caused “eutrophication,” which is the supply of excess nutrients.
The Stockbridge Bowl has a serious weed problem and a number of measures will
be needed to correct the lake’s deterioration:
-Harvest weeds to remove excess nutrients
-Strictly manage septic systems
-Use non-phosphate detergents
-Aerate
-Lower the lake’s level in winter to kill weeds.
Phosphorous is the critical nutrient which is in oversupply. 75 % of current phosphorous supply comes from erosion of developed land, 11% comes from septic systems, 10% comes from the atmosphere.
About Us
The President's Report
On March 4, Town Attorney Tom Harrington, our lake management advisor Ken Wagner of ENSR and I attended a meetinig with the Department of Environmental Protection and the National Heritage and Endangered Species Program. We discussed our proposal to hydro-rake at the Town Beach, Beachwood, Kripalu, Tanglewood beach, Camp Mahkeenac, White Pines and the channel behind the island. Ken made the presentation and we got positive feeback from both departments. It seems that the main concern of the DEP and National heritage is that hydro-raking might disturb the chara beds. Chara is the natural vegetation where the endangered snail, the Pyrgulopsis lutrica, lives. I suggested that the raking might remove some of the chara, but the overall cleaning of the invasive watermilfoil would make the habitat for the chara much better. They agreed with this and we went on to talk about our future plans.
I told them that we would need to do a 5 1/2-foot drawdown and remove about 85,000 cubic yards of silt from the channel. In addition to the chara, we need to protect the Bridle Shiner fish, which DEP and Heritage believe are in our lake. We shall need to do seining (or drop net fishing) to see if we have any shiners and, if so, how many. Ken Wagner is going to start this investigation so the we shall have some data available when we make our 5 1/2-foot drawdown porposal. The 5 1/2-foot proposal is being worked on at this time.
We also discussed a long-term plan to work on the north end of the lake near the causeway. The rentention pond on the east of the causewayis silting-in at a very rapid rate. The Heritage team said that doing any work there would entail a lot of testing for endangered species of fish and plants and it was proposed that we do such testing after we have completed all of our other plans. Removing silt in the main part of the lake would not pose as much of a problem as in the retention pond. Therefore, we may do some investigation in that area.
If anyone would like to help with our other projects or talk about them with me please email me at sba@thesba.org or telephone 413-243-6718.
Spring is just around the corner.
Gary Kleinerman/ President, SBA