‘Lake Nasty’ cleanup to switch hands

City prepares to award bid to new company

How nasty is “Lake Nasty”? Apparently nastier than a company contracted to clean it up expected.

Efforts to clean up Lake Notasulga — which earned the “nasty” moniker from neighbors after it became filled with muck, garbage and invasive overgrowth — are again moving forward as Orlando officials prepare to reward another contract to clean up the lake.

The City Council in July signed off on a contract with a Clermont-based company to restore the 1-acre pit, but the company was unable to do the job, officials said.

“Once they went into Lake Notasulga, it was a little more than the capacity they could handle,” Commissioner Regina Hill said.

So now officials are preparing to reward the job to Brownie’s Septic & Plumbing, which said it can do it for $348,000. The council will first consider a proposal later this month and then the contract will be executed, spokeswoman Karyn Barber said.

The lake is in Haralson Estates near John Young Parkway and was first dug as a man-made pit in the 1950s as part of a construction project on Colonial Drive.

City officials have wanted to clean it up since it was acquired in 2017, envisioning the restored body of water as a neighborhood park with benches and a walking path.

Central Florida Lake Management’s $194,000 bid to rid the lake of overgrowth was significantly cheaper than Brownie’s bid. But it couldn’t do the work and the Clermont-based company wasn’t paid, Barber said.

Originally work was expected to be done by January, but now that timeline has been pushed back.

After the lake is finally cleaned, the Orlando Union Rescue Mission will take over maintenance of once the men’s shelter is moved to the nearby Parkwood Inn.

Hill said other infrastructure improvements are also planned including sidewalk and drainage upgrades, to go along with a lake that will no longer be nasty.

“We want to make sure that we bring that lake back up to a pristine environment,” she said.