Growing Greener Watersheds - Lacawac Is Unique Among Watersheds - The Challenge Here is Perfection

This article and photo were submitted as part of a special "Decade of Growing Greener Watersheds" celebration and is now eligible to be selected for a $250 grant.

 

The groups partnering to sponsor the celebration include: the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds,Stream Restoration, Inc., the Western Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Eastern Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, the PA Association of Conservation Districts,LandStudies, Inc. and PA Environment Digest.

 

Details on how you can submit your success story are available at the www.GrowingGreener.com website. Enjoy this article....

Ever wonder what our native bodies of water would be like if we could turn back the clock 500 years? If man had never touched them, with either neglectful disregard for water quality or even with the best intentions born of popular multi-use demands? Well, don’t wonder any longer. Think and visit Lake Lacawac, in Wayne County.

 

While so many of our peers in watershed groups around the state are struggling with cleaning up and restoring their waterways – Lacawac Sanctuary Foundation faces a more unique challenge – protecting that which is already pure – but maintaining that bar at 100 percent.

 

It is no small task. In the early 1960’s the Philadelphia Academy of Science’s liminology experts declared 52 acre Lake Lacawac the southern most pristine glacial lake in the hemisphere. In 1966 the Lacawac Sanctuary Foundation was established to protect the 346 acre watershed of the run-off and spring fed lake gifted to it by the Watres family.

 

The non-profit group’s mission is summed up in 3 words – preservation, education and research. All three functions are very active and of intense interest to the group’s 400 plus members.

 

Protecting Lake Lacawac to that one 100th degree of perfection is no easy task. In recent years additional acreage has had to be added to safe guard the buffers and the protected watershed now encompasses 520 acres. No building (even traditional trails) of any kind is permitted inside the run off or watershed boundary.

 

Public use in the form of fishing, swimming, boating or even hiking is not permitted – though a recent interpretive trail was very carefully planned with a boardwalk, small observation deck and interpretive panels to permit the public to view the lake as an educational endeavor. That trail dedication is on May 3, of this year.

 

Additional extreme measures are also taken. Easements with nearby homeowner associations have been negotiated to create drainage and diversion ditch buffers along the Lacawac property boundary to carry both point and non-point pollution away and downstream of Lacawac. To prevent even the tiniest of invasives', no outside boats are permitted on the lake by the scientists who regularly visit.

Unique to the property since 1930 – the existing estate building is set well back and all sewerage piped nearly one-half mile over the ridge line to be treated outside of the Lacawac drainage. On an even more extreme note – waterfowl are tolerated – but never encouraged despite the nature preserve aspect of the surrounding lands! No wood duck boxes or other nesting provisions are made as aquatic birds – all birds - can bring in foreign matter and outside bio- pollutants on their feet and in their feathers.

 

So why all this zealousness extremism? Why 100 percent perfection and not the 98 percent many of our fellow watershed would be ecstatic over? Simple. Lacawac is still pure, pristine and unaffected by the development and manipulation of water bodies outside of the preserve. Nearby Lake Wallenpaupack, of which we own a mile of shoreline, is a perfect study in extreme contrast. Since 1967, Lacawac has been used in more then 75 different studies of liminology, freshwater biology and relative eco-systems. It is also the perfect “control” in wider spread projects and comparisons.

 

Recently Lacawac was the centerpiece and control in the federally funded “Pocono Comparative Lakes Study” carried out by researchers from 8 different universities. Today several projects continue on the lake and its surrounding wetlands, including a long term study by Lehigh University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, on how climate change is affecting photosynthesis by plants and algae in the lake.

 

Lake Lacawac presents scientists – and all of us - with a perfect example of “what if?” Our group is entrusted with preserving that status. The combination of facilitating and helping disseminate the results of cutting edge environmental and aquatic research coupled with an active program to educate the public on the need to protect Lacawac, and all of our waterways, keep the foundation’s members busy indeed. At the end of the day – the long term trends in Lake Lacawac will depend on our continued protection of the lake and watershed from pollution and other human disruptions – a unique task among our peers!