WASTEWATER ISSUES AT LAKE CAREY*
The Department of Environmental Protection has not mandated sewers for Lake Carey. The study now underway was commissioned by the Lemon and Tunkhannock township supervisors in the process of updating the townships Act 537 Plans.
The waters of Lake Carey meet PA standards for recreational use. This is true of both the small and large lakes. Lake Carey is safe for boating, swimming, fishing, water skiing and other such activities.
Lake Carey suffers from nutrient, not bacterial, pollution. Nutrient pollution occurs wherever farming, timbering and residential use have occurred; only very remote lakes with little or no human activity remain pristine. Phosphorous and nitrogen are carried by stormwater and groundwater into the lake. They come from farming (animal wastes and fertilizers), inadequate septic systems, lawn fertilizers, and waterfowl, among other sources. Over time these nutrients settle into the lakes sediment from which they continue to be released. The result, here as elsewhere, is excessive levels of algae (including blue green algae which can become a health problem), a lack of oxygen at greater depths and reduced water clarity.
Some proportion of the lakes existing on-lot systems perhaps one fifth or more are compromised by inappropriate soils and/or leach fields that are too close to the watertable. Conventional on-lot septic systems cannot be made to work in these instances.
The single largest source of phosphorous entering the lake approximately 40% is thought to come from failing septic systems. Central or other effective waste water systems will improve the lakes water quality and reduce the potential for well water contamination in the vicinity of a failed septic system.
Central waste water systems do not eliminate nutrient pollution, as the residents of Lake Winola and Harveys Lake have learned. Without addressing the other nutrient sources at Lake Carey, the lake will continue to receive over 60% of the nutrient pollution it now experiences.
Central wastewater collection and treatment facilities have significant financial costs for tax payers and those who are served by the system. (One current estimate projects $8.3 million in design and construction costs, $3 thousand in connection fees for individual residences and businesses, and nearly $1 thousand in annual user fees.)
Central wastewater systems have serious, potential hydrological, public safety, aesthetic and pollution costs. Central systems remove 100s of thousands of gallons a day from a lakes water table; this can have detrimental effects on the lake and on wells within its basin. Central wastewater systems, moreover, normally spur development. Development adds to congestion on roads and on the waters of the lake, and diminishes the natural beauty of the watershed. It also increases stormwater run-off as land is built upon and paved over (adding to the nutrient pollution sewers were intended to reduce).
This
description of the issues has been drawn from substantial research at this and
other lakes, including the EPAs TMDL for Lake Carey, F. X. Brownes assessment
of Lake Carey commissioned by the Association, and preliminary reports of the
septic survey conducted by Carlton Shupp. It is important to note that neither F. X. Browne nor Princeton
Hydro the two firms the Association has consulted recommend central waste water
systems for Lake Carey and similar lakes.DEP itself mandates careful assessment of all alternatives when preparing
Act 537 Plans, including the maintenance of on-lot systems and combinations of
on-lot and cluster systems.