ATHOL – Weed control, flood prevention, and water quality at Lake Ellis will be among the topics discussed at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday night at Athol Public Library. The meeting, which gets under way at 6 p.m., is being facilitated by Athol’s Office of Planning and Community Development.
The town recently landed a $47,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan for addressing water quality issues at the lake.
“We’re going to be collecting water samples from Lake Ellis over the course of the summer,” Planning and Development Director Eric Smith told the Athol Daily News, “and we’ll be having a lab test those. Tuesday night is essentially a project kick-off meeting. The grant will be used to develop a watershed-based plan for Lake Ellis and the surrounding watershed. There will be a map at the meeting basically showing how the Lake Ellis watershed includes pretty much all of the land upstream, around Mill Brook.
“Traditionally, there was an outlet on the north side of Lake Ellis,” said Smith, “and water would go on its way until it meets the next body of water. Now, eventually the water flowed under Lord Pond Plaza, under the parking lot. That’s Mill Brook. On the west side of Freedom Street you can actually see Mill Brook. It eventually meets the Millers River near Canal Street.”
Smith said Lake Ellis was, at one time, a back-up water supply for the town of Athol, before the community moved to a well-based system.
“Before my time, what happened is they basically plugged up the source,” he said. “Basically, there’s no outlet any longer, so the water is now being backed up and actually flows behind Lake Ellis and crosses Route 2 between Petersham Road, Exit 17, and the Pleasant Street Bridge. The water is actually flowing south now. So, that may be impacting the water quality. And there may be some other things impacting the water quality as well.
“That’s why we’re having the assessment done; to find out what the issues are and come up with some solutions.”
Smith said residents living in the area of Lake Ellis have over the years expressed concerns about the need for aquatic weed control and sought funds to address that issue.
“That’s a sign the citizens have been concerned with water quality,” he said. “But just putting money into aquatic weed control – unless you address the sources going into the lake and address the overall health of the lake – you’re basically going to be spending money over and over again for aquatic weed control, and that doesn’t solve the overall problem.”
Once testing has been completed, the town will work with the Peabody-based environmental consulting firm of Weston & Sampson, and Katherine Robertson of the Massachusetts Chemistry and Technology Alliance to develop a mitigation plan.