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For years, mounds of gritty black silt
have grown from the bed of Mountainside's Upper Echo Lake, rising slowly
upward like muddy underwater beasts yearning for air.
Fed by dirt from eroding shorelines and sediment from
Nomehegan Brook, the mounds have swelled so large they have crested the
water's surface and become islands, covered with shrubs and spindly trees.
Like many man-made bodies of water, the lakes of Union County
are inundated year after year with silt and runoff. Earlier this month,
county officials announced a $7.5 million plan to dredge the murky
sediment and restore the shorelines of five waterways, including Upper
Echo Lake.
"This project will help to ensure the environmental
health of these waterways for years to come," said AI Mirabella,
chairman of the county freeholder board.
The work will begin at Upper Echo Lake, which will be drained
in April, then dredged and refilled by winter. Hoping to slow the return
of silt and sediment, workers will flatten the steep shorelines and plant
shrubs and grasses whose roots will keep soil from slipping into the
water.
Nevertheless, the sediment will eventually return.
',It's Mother Nature's cycle said Jeffrey Wright, project
manager for FX Browne, an engineering firm hired to restore Upper Echo
Lake. "What we are doing is developing a design that will keep the
sediment from returning so quickly."
Less sediment will also mean more plants and, in turn, more
fish and birds, said Dennis Miranda, executive director of the Rahway
River Association.
Similar work will occur at Rahway River Park Lake and Lagoon
in Rahway, Meisel Pond in Springfield, Rahway River Parkway in
Springfield, Nomahegan Lake in Cranford and Briant
Park Pond in Summit.
Funding will come from the state Department of Environmental
Protection and the Union
County Open Space, Recreation and Historic Pres- ervation Trust Fund.
Created in 1929, Echo Lake has been dredged five times, most
recently in 1992.
"These waterways tend to collect a lot of silt,"
Miranda said. "So you need to keep cleaning them out, just like you
would the bottom of your bathtub."
Joe Ryan may be reached at jryan@starledger.com
or (908) 302-1508 |
