State of the Lake 2019

Dear LMPA Cur­rent, Past and Future Members,

We are pleased to pro­vide the annu­al “State of the Lake” update for the mem­ber­ship. 2019 was anoth­er busy year for the LMPA. We con­tin­ued to work close­ly with the Lake Maspenock Aquat­ic Veg­e­ta­tion Con­trol Cit­i­zens Input Group (CIG), appoint­ed by the Town of Hop­kin­ton Board of Select­men in 2015, who reports to the Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works (DPW). The CIG works with a Cer­ti­fied Lake Man­ag­er (Con­sul­tant) and con­cerned cit­i­zens to cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive man­age­ment, con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing plan for our lake (The Plan). The Plan can be found on the LMPA web­site at www.lmpa.org.

In keep­ing with The Plan, two exten­sive weed sur­veys were con­duct­ed in the spring and fall by the CIG and LMPA vol­un­teers. By late sum­mer sub­stan­tial weed growth, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the north basin, was con­firmed by the Fall sur­vey. Every three years, the lake is eli­gi­ble for an extend­ed draw­down to help con­trol weeds by expos­ing them to a deep freeze. How­ev­er, it has been four years since our last extend­ed draw­down and for the sec­ond year in a row we have been unable to exe­cute it due to poten­tial impact to the shal­low well of one of our neigh­bors. The Town of Hop­kin­ton, CIG, DPW and LMPA con­tin­ue to work towards a solu­tion. Since there is an expec­ta­tion of exces­sive weed growth for the upcom­ing year, the CIG has rec­om­mend­ed that the DPW be pre­pared to con­duct a spot appli­ca­tion of her­bi­cides if need­ed this Spring. This option is con­sis­tent with The Plan which has been approved by the Town of Hop­kin­ton and sup­port­ed by Upton and Mil­ford as well. In order to exe­cute on this request, the CIG held a Pub­lic Hear­ing where over six­ty inter­est­ed par­ties attend­ed to learn about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the intent to use her­bi­cides and voice their opin­ions. An update to the Hop­kin­ton Select Board fol­lowed where there was unan­i­mous sup­port. The LMPA Exec­u­tive Board is in unan­i­mous sup­port of this rec­om­men­da­tion as well. The per­mit­ting process and the bid process to select a ven­dor has begun. The DPW has funds approved and allo­cat­ed in the cur­rent bud­get this year for this pur­pose so we should be well posi­tioned to act if dic­tat­ed by the Spring weed survey.

Our annu­al meet­ing was again held at Ko Sushi Bar and Grill where we had strong atten­dance and great input from our mem­ber­ship. Please mark your cal­en­dars for this year’s meet­ing which will be held on June 1, 2020. We will be vot­ing on two Exec­u­tive Board posi­tions avail­able as our Sec­re­tary Pat­ty Hol­land and Denise Voto­la­to will both be step­ping down. Although we will miss Pat­ty and Denise and appre­ci­ate all their con­tri­bu­tions, it will be a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring in new board mem­bers with fresh ideas and hope­ful­ly a lot of enthu­si­asm and ener­gy! If you are inter­est­ed in serv­ing on the board or want to learn more, please con­tact us at LMPA.org@verizon.net.

Once again, our Social Com­mit­tee was extreme­ly active with events that allowed all of us to have some fun while con­nect­ing with both long stand­ing and new neigh­bors. Our sec­ond annu­al “Spring Fling” at the Hop­kin­ton Coun­try Club was well attend­ed with over 80 mem­bers. This year’s Spring Fling which is being held on April 4th at the HCC. Please check out the enclosed fly­er and pur­chase your tick­ets early!

Oth­er com­mu­ni­ty events host­ed by the Social Com­mit­tee includ­ed Fam­i­ly Fun Day where Magi­cian Mike from Abra­cadabra was a huge hit with the kids. We kicked off the 4th of July hol­i­day with a new idea dubbed Light up the Lake. Many homes around the lake used cre­ative light­ing for every­one to enjoy via their boats. The boat parade was even bet­ter this year as boat own­ers showed great cre­ativ­i­ty. Con­grat­u­la­tions to The Sweeney Fam­i­ly for win­ning this year’s prop tro­phy for a sec­ond straight year for their “Under the Sea” theme. Our 4th annu­al Corn­hole tour­na­ment was a huge suc­cess. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the win­ners, Corey McDon­ald and Ron Haley!! Spe­cial thanks to our neigh­bors who host­ed tour­na­ment loca­tions and the Sweeney’s for again host­ing the finals and after party.

Pro­mot­ing boat safe­ty on the lake is an impor­tant objec­tive of the LMPA. In lieu of a ded­i­cat­ed Boat­ing Safe­ty Class we now pro­mote the numer­ous class­es already offered local­ly through the Envi­ron­men­tal Police. This infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the LMPA web­site. For the first time, the US Coast Guard offered boat safe­ty checks last sum­mer on Lake Maspenock and issued stick­ers for com­pli­ant boaters. The Coast Guard com­ment­ed that we had high par­tic­i­pa­tion for a lake our size. Final­ly, we encour­age all our mem­bers, neigh­bors and boat own­ers to “self-police” our lake. If you observe peo­ple com­pro­mis­ing safe­ty, please speak with them.

In response to the two trag­ic drown­ings over the last two sum­mers, the LMPA worked with the Hop­kin­ton Fire Chief and Parks & Recre­ation to improve pre­ven­tion and response plans. Active cam­eras have been installed at Sandy Beach as well as an Emer­gency box with video and a direct line to the Hop­kin­ton Police. New sig­nage has also been installed. We all hope that through increased vig­i­lance drown­ings can be pre­vent­ed in the future.

Stew­ard­ship of our won­der­ful lake is anoth­er impor­tant objec­tive of the asso­ci­a­tion. Water qual­i­ty checks are con­duct­ed three times a year in mul­ti­ple loca­tions around the lake. These results are post­ed on our web­site and demon­strate con­sis­tent­ly that we have a healthy lake with high water qual­i­ty. Our Spring Lake Cleanup was very well attend­ed while the Fall Cleanup was con­duct­ed by a group of enthu­si­as­tic Hop­kin­ton High School vol­un­teer stu­dents who were part of the new Envi­ron­men­tal Club. The LMPA pro­vid­ed piz­za for all the vol­un­teers and we thank Harvey’s for donat­ing the dumpster.

Our LMPA com­mu­ni­ty is thriv­ing and con­tin­ues to grow. Dues are $35 annu­al­ly or $65 for a two-year mem­ber­ship, payable by check writ­ten out to LMPA and mailed to 6 Downey Street Hop­kin­ton, MA or via the Pay­Pal link on our web­site at www.LMPA,org. To be envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and cut down on costs, we strive to com­mu­ni­cate elec­tron­i­cal­ly. If your email changes, please let us know by email­ing lmpa.org@verizon.net.

Look­ing for­ward to 2020, we ask you to remain cur­rent in your mem­ber­ship, encour­age friends to join as mem­bers (You don’t have to live on the lake to join!) and par­tic­i­pate by get­ting involved in our many events and vol­un­teer opportunities.

We invite you to check out pho­tos from all com­mu­ni­ty events that can be found on our web­site at www.LMPA.org. Also found on our web­site are the dates for all the upcom­ing events this sum­mer. Please check it out and mark your cal­en­dars and “like” us on Face­book in order to stay updated.

We thank you for your sup­port of the LMPA, look for­ward to a great year in 2020 and hope to see you at the Spring Fling and Annu­al Meeting!

The Exec­u­tive Board and Offi­cers of the LMPA