Save The Lake Day Is Saturday

BRIDGEWATER — The Friends of the Lake (FOTL) will host its annual Save The Lake Day on Lake Lillinonah Saturday, May 22, from 9 am to 1 pm, rain or shine.

Save the Lake Day is an opportunity to join friends and neighbors in cleaning Lake Lillinonah’s shores and waters of garbage and debris. The day kicks off at 9 am at the Route 133 state boat launch in Bridgewater.

Participants will receive gloves, garbage bags and tarps, and go out in teams to clean along the shore-line and in the lake via boats. Volunteers will be treated to food and fun.

Lake Lillinonah was created in 1955 for hydroelectric power. Lake Lillinonah is essentially a widened section of the Housatonic River that stretches from the Bleachery Dam in New Milford, through Bridgewater and Brookfield, to the Shepaug Dam in Newtown/Southbury, a distance of about 17 miles.

From its headwaters in the Housatonic River in New Milford, Lake Lillinonah extends 12 miles to the Shepaug Dam, covering 1,900 acres to a maximum depth of 110 feet with 45 miles of shoreline, much of it steep hillside that rises 200 feet or more above the water line.

Friends of the Lake is a non-profit organization founded in 2003 to improve the conditions on Lake Lillinonah for the recreational enjoyment and for its long-term environmental protection. For more information visit FriendsOfTheLake.org or send email to info@friendsofthelake.org.

Additional Benefits

As part of its annual Save the Lake Day this weekend, FOTL has announced it will be launching new, hi-tech efforts to collect water quality data on Lake Lillinonah to fight algae blooms that for years have plagued Connecticut’s second-largest lake.

The data will aid international scientists studying the health of freshwater lake flora and fauna as well as toxic algae blooms called cyanobacteria that are a threat to the health of humans and pets. To pinpoint the causes of these and other adverse conditions, FOTL will deploy an electronic device to collect data above and beneath the water every 15 minutes, sharing it with a global network of scientists studying 44 lakes in 14 countries.

This network, called GLEON (Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network), is studying the impact of myriad conditions, including climate change, on our planet’s freshwater lakes. Lake Lillinonah will be the first in Connecticut, and only the second site in New England (the other is Lake Sunapee, N.H.), to join this international effort.

The electronic monitoring will measure water quality parameters including dissolved oxygen content, temperature, acidity (pH), and how much algae is present. It will also measure weather data including wind speed and direction, sunlight intensity, rainfall, relative humidity, air temperature and water levels.

To aid in data gathering, FOTL will also unveil a newly-developed, free iPhone Application to monitor water levels and debris that often clogs the lake and prevents its recreational use when FirstLight Power, the lake’s owner, raises the water level.

The app will enable users to take photographs of lake conditions and transmit the photo and relevant data, including GPS location, to the group’s improved website, which launches May 28. It is hoped that this information will help enable a far more effective lake management program that removes and reduces the debris in the lake.

All information will be available to the public to aid fishermen, recreational users of the lake, and scientists.