The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Beleaguered Lake Pocotopaug to get oxygen treatment to beat algae
EAST HAMPTON — A broad smile spread across James “Pete” Brown’s face.
“Keep that applause coming,” the Town Council chairman said as about two dozen residents continued to clap.
The council this week was rewarded with the applause, and a shouted “Yahoo,” after it approved a contract with a Michigan company hoping to revive Lake Pocotopaug.
Residents who live around the lake, seen by many as the jewel in the heart of East Hampton, have grown increasingly frustrated with the now-annual onset of toxic algae blooms that puts an end to swimming in the lake.
It is, Councilor Kevin Reich said, “a challenge we have had over many, many years.”
In an effort to put an end to that challenge, the town had issued a request for proposals for companies that would add oxygen to the lake during summer months to control the blooms.
In a report to the council this week, Town Manager David E. Cox said the town had received four proposals in early February.
The request for proposals “sought proposals for the introduction of oxygen into the lake” during the summer months, when the lake typically becomes oxygen-deprived at lower depths.
In the winter, the mix of cold air and often strong winds usually churns the water in a lake, according to an article on the website academia.edu. “There is no stratification because the wind is strong enough to destratify naturally the water column,” according to the paper’s author, Mahmud Achmad.
But in the summer, “with warm weather and little wind, the circulation happens incompletely,” which “leads to stratification.” In circumstances like that, artificial destratifiers (are) needed to add energy to circulate water completely,” Achmuad wrote, citing the work of A. J. Boulton and M. A. Brock.
The blooms are caused, in large part, because of run-off of water containing phosphorus that is contained in lawn fertilizers.
An ad hoc committee made up of various town employees and members of Conservation Lake Commission reviewed the four proposals and honed-in on a submission from EverBlue Lakes of Richlands, Mich., Cox told the council.
The committee submitted a series of questions to EverBlue Lakes, which the company answered.
“Based on those responses and affirmations,” Cox said, the committee recommended the town enter into a 5-year agreement with EverBlue Lakes.
The “aeration and lake treatment” proposal calls for a lease agreement.
In the first two years, the cost of the equipment and treatment will be an estimated $321,000, Cox said.
The town will pay for a portion of that amount by using surplus funds from the 2019 fiscal year and a portion of the proceeds from the projected sale of Town Hall, Cox said.
Cox said EverBlue will dot the lake with 55 diffusers that will be powered by two portable compressors that will be placed on private property.
(Anyone interested in having the compressors placed on their property is asked to contact Cox at his Town Hall office.)
Jeremy Hall, the town’s parks and recreation director, serves as a liaison to the Conservation Lake Commission.
He said Wednesday the diffusers will create bubbles that will help to mix oxygen at the lower levels of the lake and “keep phosphorous down in the soil.”
The company has a “BioBlast” treatment that calls for using “a freshlybrewed blend of hardworking microbes” to help clean the lake.
Hall and the commission will work with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and EverBlue about when and how to use the BioBlast treatment.
When the motion to accept EverBlue’s offer, which was made by Councilor Barbara Moore and seconded by Timothy Feegel was approved, there was a surge of applause.
As the council basked in the unusual display of support, one resident called out, “Well done, ladies and gentlemen. You can sleep well tonight.”