Prospect Lake

For a long time, many of us have been urging the town to provide public access to Prospect Lake. To use the lake, you had to park right on Prospect Lake Road, then unload your boat, children, etc., with cars whizzing by. It was an accident waiting to happen.

So we were happy when the state announced a couple of years ago that they were going to create boat access (and maybe swimming access) from a vacant lot the state had acquired years ago, a lot that's not on the lake itself but on the major stream that feeds it (known to locals as the "canal"), about 300 feet or so to the west of the old dangerous access point on Prospect Lake Road. And, lo and behold, crews showed up in early summer to do the job. They cleared the lot, put in a "driveway", created a parking area, and built a long wooden ramp down to the canal so folks could take their boats down the ramp and launch them into the canal. But, for reasons only explicable to bureaucrats, they stopped the ramp short of the canal. To launch a boat, you'd have to carry your boat through a lot of muck and then somehow get into it.

It's a joke. Go look at it if you don't believe me. Lord knows how much taxpayer money was spent on a project that is totally useless. If folks use it at all, they'll just park their cars there and then walk 300 feet to the old spot to get into the lake. That won't significantly reduce the danger to pedestrians, so even that objective hasn't been achieved (and maybe even made worse).

What to do? Complaining to the state isn't going to accomplish anything. I think the town should just take the bull by the horns and finish the job by actually building a ramp into the canal. That probably violates all kinds of laws, so town hall probably won't do it. Who'd like to volunteer to help me do it at night on the sly?

Another lake subject: Friends of Prospect Lake arranged for another treatment of the weeds a few weeks ago, and it was very successful. I know there are people in town who don't like treating the lake with chemicals, but the ones used don't hurt anything except weeds, and providing public recreation is more important than appeasing what seems to be some people's unwarranted paranoia.