Lake Garfield Working Group April Meeting

April Meeting

While it has been several months since last reporting in the Monterey News, the Lake Garfield Working Group (LGWG) has continued to hold its monthly open meetings in the town hall. Among the issues that continue to be the focus of our work are: 1) keeping abreast of other lake management efforts in the Berkshires as well as partnering opportunities; 2) ongoing effort to develop mechanisms for monitoring and reporting toxic cyanobacteria; 3) reviewing grant funding opportunities; 4) reviewing water milfoil mitigation efforts and 5) funding for continued efforts of diver-assisted suction harvesting of these invasive weeds and evidence-based monitoring of the lake ecosystem.   

Following the newly instated social distancing protocols for town meetings, the LGWG met on Monday, March 19, by conference call, including one member calling in from Florida. The focus of the meeting was the 2020-21 budget request of $30,000 submitted to the combined select board/finance committee meeting of March 4. The purpose of these funds is to maintain an ongoing effort to mitigate the propagation of this invasive weed and insure continuity in the monitoring of the lake ecology crucial to effective management. While questions were raised from the finance committee about why such an expense would not best be covered by a lake tax district, it was noted that the formation of such a district could neither be insured nor instituted in less than three to five years. For this reason, the recognition of the importance of Lake Garfield to the whole town, the recent experience of the Stockbridge Bowl (Lake Mahkeenac), as well as the longstanding efforts involving other Berkshire lakes, it was the general view stated by a member of the select board that in our facing this problem, “It is better to invest $30,000 a year now than $250,000 a year several years from now,” and the select board voted to place the budget request on the warrant for the next annual town meeting.

The next meeting of the Lake Garfield Working Group is scheduled to take place by conference call at 7 p.m., on Monday, April 13. All interested parties are encouraged to attend subject to instructions from town hall concerning conference calls.