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bECOME A mEMBER

Join Friends of Lake Williams. Besides your financial support, our membership shows the town and state the number of active members in Friends of Lake Williams, which assists us in applying for town funding and state grants. Find out more! 

Annual lake clean up day

Friends of Lake Williams organizes an annual Lake Cleanup Day (date to be posted on this website). You can help by volunteering your services for an hour or two on a specified summer morning. It’s an enjoyable way to meet your neighbors and help keep our lake clean.

Report Sightings of Milfoil and Fanwort

Information received by members is used to help identify infested areas.  A lake survey is performed by Northeast Aquatic Research (NEAR), our lake management company, prior to herbicide applications

variable leaf milfoil

fanwort

variable leaf milfoil

do not chop up milfoil or fanwort

If you are a boater, maintain a distance of at least 25 feet from any buoys or markers indicating heavy areas of milfoil and fanwort.   Milfoil typically propagates by fragmentation, and boat motors are notorious for chopping the invasive weeds into fragments that float off and establish themselves in a new spot in the lake.

Enjoy the lake responsibly

Do not discard empty beverage cans, worm containers, or other trash into the water or on the shoreline.  Remove all waste when you depart.  Please go the extra step and remove litter left behind by others.

Do not bring in invasive weeds

Ensure your boat is free of “piggybacking” vegetation before launching.  Invasive weeds are known to travel between bodies of water on hulls, motors, trailers, bait buckets, fishing tackle, fishing nets, etc.  We don’t want to be exporting our problem to others, and more importantly, we do not want to allow other invasive species to invade our lake by this method. We are investing many thousands of dollars into the eradication of milfoil and fanwort. Please do not re-infest our lake!

Do not discard anything in the lake that does not belong there. For instance, a suspected source of some invasive weeds is from the contents of aquariums, goldfish bowls or other similar containers.

DO NOT USE FERTILIZERS

If you live on the shoreline, please do not use fertilizers. When it rains, excess fertilizer from lawns is washed into the lake .  High levels of nitrogen and phosphorus can cause eutrophication. Eutrophication is an over production of algae and aquatic weeds, which can lead to hypoxia (“dead zones”), causing fish kills and a decrease in aquatic life.

If you must use pesticides, apply them as far away from the lake as practical and always apply in accordance with the directions on the container.  Some pesticides are not recommended for application near a body of water where fish or wildlife could be affected.

pRACTICE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

If you live on the shoreline, practice watershed management.  It is a good idea to build either a riparian buffer or a recessed water catchment area to prevent water from running unabated to the lake during rain events.  A riparian buffer is a swath of thick brush or other plant material that is allowed to grow and become a buffer where the lake water meets your property.  These methods help filter the water, so less nutrients will not find their way to the lake where they may create algae blooms and unintended growth of nuisance plants (invasive or non-invasive).

REPORT BLUE GREEN ALGAE

Educate yourself regarding Cyanobacteria. Click here

Let the Town Know How Important 

the Lake is to You!

If you are a registered voter in Lebanon, be active in the budget process to help ensure  sufficient funds are set aside each year to help combat the invasive weeds and maintain the health of our lake.