A grant-funded management released by West Milford, N.J, proposes a variety of improvements to onsite treatment systems to help reduce phosphorus loading to Greenwoood Lake. The lake is being drawn down to kill weeds and facilitate dock repairs. Septic systems are said to be contributing 1,120 pounds of phosphorus per year to the Greenwood Lake watershed, according to a report in The Record, a newspaper serving North Jersey.
“The plan...included several recommendations on ways to reduce the amount of phosphorous entering the lake and its tributaries from septic systems,” the news article stated. “Some suggestions, most notably the proposal to have all septic systems pumped and inspected once every three years, have already been implemented in West Milford, which contains the entire New Jersey end of the Greenwood Lake watershed.
“Yet others, like the proposal to have as many as 72 homes install potentially bank-breaking alternate water treatment systems, will take some resourcefulness to be realized...”
The On-Site Wastewater Treatment Prioritization Plan for West Milford was designed to reduce phosphorus by 43 percent. Greenwood Lake has been designated as impaired, and if it is to lose that classification, phosphorus loadings must be reduced. The 43 percent reduction could eliminate nearly 750,000 pounds of algae from the lake annually per year, sources said.
