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Cleanup set for Webster Lake By John Dignam TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF jdignam@telegram.com I think people will see a significant improvement in water quality by the end of 2007. WEBSTER DPW Director Dennis E. Westgate WEBSTER— Work will start this spring to cleanse storm water entering Webster Lake at Union Point off Interstate 395, the most significant of 40 places where storm water drains directly into the lake. Planning also has started to address two more sites, with work on those starting next spring, according to Department of Public Works Director Dennis E. Westgate. The sediment control project will be done with $168,000 added to the state budget each of the last two years through amendments by state Rep. Paul J. Kujawski, D-Webster. “We should be able to get to the eight major trouble spots with three rounds of funding,” Mr. Westgate said Friday. “I think people will see a significant improvement in water quality by the end of 2007.” The project includes designing, getting permits for and building detention areas that will remove sediment and pollutants from storm water before it enters the lake, according to Mr. Westgate. Selectmen last week accepted the project, which will go out to bid next month, with construction to start in late May or early June. The $336,000 will bring needed improvements, but it is less than was expected in 2002 when Mr. Kujawski and then-state environmental affairs secretary Robert Durand announced a $4.3 million bond to clean up Webster Lake, the state’s largest natural body of fresh water. The bond was authorized and is still authorized, Mr. Kujawski said last week, “but the administration has to actually authorize its use, and it hasn’t done that.” A bond was approved in 1996 for $3.6 million to rid the lake of sediment, but the administration also refused to release that money. “From the Webster Lake Association’s point of view, anything that’s done is a help,” said Robert LaFramboise, chairman of the WLA’s environmental committee. Mr. LaFramboise said boaters and swimmers might notice the lake water becoming cloudy when storm water washes in, but that the major impacts may be initially overlooked: sediment that over time fills the lake, nutrients that feed weeds, invasive plants that take root, pollution. “It could take years before you have a true impact, but as time goes forward, the water just gets better and better,” Mr. LaFramboise said. Mr. Westgate and Mr. LaFramboise said the recently completed installation of sewer lines around the lake was the most important project affecting the lake. “Now we have to start combating other issues. This is a start at that,” he said of the sediment control projects. In 1998 CME Associates Inc., the town’s consulting engineers, did a study of 185 storm water drainage points around the lake and found that 40 drained directly into the lake, according to Mr. Westgate. The study identified eight drainage points that are major trouble spots: the entrance to Union Point, Sucker Brook Cove, the swamp near North Village bridge, Point Breeze, the marina area along Route 193, Browns Brook into Reid Smith Cove, streams discharging near Wakefield Avenue and the end of June Avenue. Mr. Westgate and Mr. Kujawski praised the lake association for taking an active role in addressing issues affecting the lake. The association was formed three years ago and has more than 500 members, according to Mr. LaFramboise. He said the association has invested more than $100,000 in such projects as water quality studies, weed assessments and chemical treatments of the lake. Mr. LaFramboise said improving the quality of the water is something for which the state took responsibility in past years, although not in recent years. However, he said, the state is paying for the new projects, and he credited Mr. Kujawski with acquiring the funding. “It really doesn’t matter how it gets done at this point, as long as it gets done,” he said. It is uncertain when the town will be able to address the dredging of sediment that has filled in some areas of the lake over the years, for which much of the bond money would have been used. But Mr. LaFramboise noted the sediment control project will keep the sediment problem from getting worse. “We do the little projects as we can afford them,” he said of the town and WLA’s efforts. Mr. Westgate said the DPW continues a number of storm water projects it started a few years ago to help prevent pollutants from running into the lake. One project includes using a street sweeper and catch basin cleaner together in the spring and fall to target areas from which street runoff would most affect the lake. Another involves making draining improvements such as rebuilding catch basins, repairing or replacing draining pipes, cleaning detention areas and installing new sump pumps that collect sediment. |
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