Dead Fish Don't Swim In Lake Hopatcong
On Saturday, some of my family went out on our dock, to see how the problem with the water level was moving along.
There has been a good deal of press regarding this water level problem and specifically about a group of 12 business owners who have businesses around Lake Hopatcong and have been adversely affected by a draw down conducted last fall by the State Of New Jersey. This has contributed to the current problem we are having with Lake Hopatcong’s water level.
The water is approximately 2 feet below the normal level. This has caused concern amongst boaters and marinas alike, that they cannot launch their boats safely and effectively. The swimming shores also are not at an adequate water level for swimming.
Subsequently the business owners in the lawsuit who derive their business from the boaters who use Lake Hopatcong to buzz around, water ski, wakeboard, fish, etc. are now facing trouble because without these boaters, their source of revenue is decreased substantially. It is certainly bad enough that the current economic conditions are affecting these business owners to begin with, now they also must deal with this additional obstacle.
New Jersey state court appeals court heard their case and denied a motion for emergent relief without reason. Obviously the business owners are not pleased with this decision and continue to blame the State of New Jersey for the troubles.
Please look for links throughout the web site to various informational sources regarding this matter.
On Saturnday, my son wanted to fish for a little while, so we went and bought worms and came back to do some fishing.
We live on the lake and we have a dock. We were able to fish off the dock but the water was approximately 3 feet less than it ordinarily is and that made quite a difference. It was about 2 feet deep where it is usually 5 feet deep.
Fishing wasn’t very good because of this and just the site of the fish carcasses and the plastic bottles just was very unappealing. I was very dissatisfied with what I saw and needless to say my son and I lost our enthusiasm to fish before long as well. Forget swimming too.
Needless to say I was quite discouraged about what I saw and that motivated me to try to do something about it. That is how this blog was born.
Please take a look at some of these pictures from that day. You can see clearly that Lake Hopatcong is in a deteriorating state and we need to organize and correct these problems. The communities around the lake need to work with each other and the state to resolve this problem.
From what I hear at this time, the organization currently responsible for the well being of Lake Hopatcong is
LAKE HOPATCONG COMMISSION
P.O. Box 8515, Landing NJ 07850
973-601-1070 (phone) 973-601-1071 (fax)
E-MAIL: lkhopcom@lakehopatcong.org
LAKE HOPATCONG COMMISSION WEB SITE
I don’t know much about them but I would like to learn more about why Lake Hopatcong is deteriorating like it is.
Help Save Lake Hopatcong 