Politics & Government

Newton Lake Cleanup Kicks Off Monday

Freeholder Jeffrey Nash will lead a multi-town meeting in Oaklyn while the county parks dept. rolls out a new plan of attack for the beleaguered waterway.

County and local leaders will gather in Oaklyn on Monday night for a multi-town meeting to discuss the declining conditions of the algae-choked Newton Lake Park.

The meeting kicks off at 7 p.m. at the Oaklyn Town Hall courtroom (500 White Horse Pike). It will be led by Freeholder Jeffrey Nash and the mayors of Collingswood, Oaklyn and Haddon Township, whose towns all border the lake.

"Since the early spring, vegetative material has been growing exponentially throughout the area and is suffocating the ecosystem," the county said in a written statement. 

Find out what's happening in Collingswoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In a Patch interview with Nash earlier this month, the freeholder said that he was well aware of the problem, and that the county was prepared to take steps both large and small to address it.

An early attempt to resolve the issue involved aerators, which the county installed at a $120,000 cost, but which just as often as not have been observed to be inoperable, clogged or simply overworked.

Find out what's happening in Collingswoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In an announcement Friday, Nash said the county parks department will also kick off a new cleanup plan Monday. It has enlisted the services of the environmental firm Princeton Hydro for "an amphibious collection machine called the Truxor" which will "rake, collect and remove [algae] mats" for disposal.

“This project will give us a leg up on the algae and provide a possible roadmap to eradicate for the future,” Nash promised in a statement.


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