Candlewood Lake Authority 2014 State of the Lake

The Comeback

The Candlewood Isle Clubhouse was the setting for the State of the Lake forum on Saturday, March 15. This type of event was put on once by the CLA around 10 years ago, and the CLA thought it was something that the Candlewood Lake Community was in great need of having return.

One Lake... 70 Communities

Candlewood Lake has close to 70 lake communities that cover much of the 65 miles of shoreline Candlewood has to offer. Knowing the complexity of a lake with extensive pressures (high shoreline and watershed development, high recreational use, etc.) as well as one with other environmental challenges (zebra mussel prevention, Eurasian watermilfiol, algae blooms), combined with the complexity of being both a pumped storage hydroelectric facility as well as a lake bordered by five municipalities and many more individual communities — Candlewood is anything but simple. It was time to bring lake leadership representatives from the Candlewood Lake communities together.

Making Progress

The forum lasted a little over two hours and consisted of presentations by the CLA on several topics:

•     Milfoil Control/Grass Carp Option Update
•     Zebra Mussel Prevention
•     Blue-Green Algae
•     CLA Marine Patrol Overview

The presentations allowed the CLA to give the community representatives some background information on important topics and following that segment was a session of Q&A with the audience and the CLA. This was a critical part of the program and allowed the community members to both ask questions of the CLA as well as raise topics of concern to them. Some topics of discussion were the night-time speed limits on Candlewood, proper boat lighting after dark, the scheduling of tournaments Candlewood by groups who recently competed in zebra mussel infected waters, boats mooring close to residences and the status of Vaughn's Neck.

Attendees were encouraged to take information from the meeting and share it with their community members. The meeting was filmed by New Fairfield TV and will be shown on TV and be made available online in the coming weeks. As soon as editing is complete and the show is ready to air we will let you know how to view it.