Category: deep creek lake

Interestinbg points in this letter to the editor of the Cumberland Times:

To the Editor:
Cumberland Times-News Cumberland Times-News Fri Sep 17, 2010, 08:00 AM EDT

— Three strikes in baseball means you’re out. Many worldwide religions regard the number three as having important significance.

Three times this year sewage has spilled into Deep Creek Lake.

The first sewage spill went largely unreported. Since there was never any official estimate given the only thing to work off of are estimates made by private home owners. Some of these are as high as 65,000 gallons.

The second spill was reported at first by the Cumberland Times-News with estimates of 45,000 gallons of raw sewage entering the lake. A recent spill was estimated at 6,400 gallons, even though the original estimate issued by the Deep Creek Lake POA was 9,000 gallons.

In one summer season it appears that over 116,400 gallons of raw sewage have entered Deep Creek Lake. This coincides with the largest fish kill ever reported in the lake watershed.

As a real estate agent and small business owner I, like many lake residents, depend on the lake’s recreational value to sustain small business growth.

More importantly, I look to Deep Creek Lake to provide our area with an important natural resource: both recreationally and ecologically.

Gorgeous migrating birds, (bald eagles and herons included) unique freshwater fish, and exciting freshwater mammals, (such as beavers) all make this resource and the surrounding streams their home.

On the recreational side, Deep Creek Lake has introduced countless visitors and residents alike to just how much fun and enjoyment Mother Nature can offer.

Though, as a citizen watching sewage literally run into our lake, I fear that those in the positions to maintain lake water quality have failed on multiple occasions.

Just as BP, Halliburton, and Trans Ocean failed to maintain an operational and secure oil well in the Gulf — the Garrett County commissioners and Department of Public Utilities Sanitation Division have failed to maintain a viable and safe sewage system at Deep Creek Lake.

This failure has threatened not only the health of the lake but public health as well.

To add insult to injury they failed not once, not twice, but a total of three times. In doing so, they have put many lake area businesses in jeopardy of large scale profit losses and endangered the health of local residents and visitors alike.

This goes without mentioning the tremendous toll these spills have taken on the lake’s aquatic life. To me this is unacceptable.

As residents and business owners we have two choices. We can quietly allude ourselves to the false pretense that everything is being done by our current elected officials to maintain lake quality and preserve our natural resources. Or we can face the stark reality that something needs to change.

As sewage fills Deep Creek Lake and wind turbines dot our once picturesque mountain landscape are we not forced to ask, have our elected officials kept the lake area and Western Maryland’s best interest at heart?

Perhaps we need to ask all elected county officials to exit their offices since new representatives have been chosen to hopefully make far better choices and offer much more efficient management of Western Maryland’s crown jewel, Deep Creek Lake.

Jeremy Gosnell

Oakland

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!

Strings from cloth mop entangled part of pump, caused malfuction Sunday afternoon
Megan Miller
Cumberland Times-News Cumberland Times-News Wed Sep 08, 2010, 08:00 AM EDT

— OAKLAND — A sewage pump malfunction on Sunday in Garrett County resulted in a 6,400-gallon sewage spill near the shore of Deep Creek Lake.

The spill occurred in the area of 2739 Lake Shore Drive at about 3:10 p.m., when strings from a cloth mop entangled the pump’s float control device, according to Linda Lindsey, director of the Garrett County Department of Public Utilities. Because the float device was bound up, the pumps ran continuously until they overheated.

Sewage spilled across the ground and into a nearby stream that feeds into the lake.

“It basically saturated the ground, because the ground was so dry,” Lindsey said at Tuesday’s county commission meeting.

County officials were notified when an adjoining property owner heard an alarm at the station and called the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Management. That office paged the public utilities employee on duty, who went immediately to the scene of the spill.

Lindsey said the employee was able to correct the malfunction approximately nine minutes after receiving notification of the problem.

The ground was disinfected and the area cordoned off from the public. Buoys were set up to restrict traffic in that portion of the lake.

A public service announcement was broadcast on the radio Monday to notify the public of the hazard.

Water testing has been conducted daily since the spill and will continue until bacteria counts fall to acceptable levels, Lindsey said.

It’s the second major malfunction to result in a sewage overflow in as many months.

On July 11, an electrical malfunction at a pump station near the intersection of U.S. Route 219 and Lake Shore Drive caused 42,000 gallons of sewage to overflow along the shore of the lake.

In that incident, an electrical short prevented an emergency generator from supplying power to the pumps. The spill apparently occurred sometime before 7 a.m. and was reported by a neighboring property owner at approximately 9:45 a.m. County workers corrected the problem at the pump station by about 10 a.m.

Afterward, county officials committed to the installation of diesel-powered emergency backup pumps at three pump stations, including the two involved in the recent spills and another on the same line.

Those are the three pump stations that handle the majority of the system’s flow, Lindsey said.

Workers began installing the diesel pumps last week but were pulled away to repair water leaks elsewhere in the system. Lindsey said that had the diesel pump been online, Sunday’s spill would likely have been prevented.

She said her department tries to educate businesses and vacation rental companies about what materials can and cannot be flushed down the drain, but that doesn’t prevent all problems. Even towels and bedsheets have occasionally made their way through the system to bind up the pumps.

Contact Megan Miller at mmiller@times-news.com.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Deep Creek Do It All specializes in cleaning services in Garrett County & @ Deep Creek Lake. Give them a call (301-501-0217) or visit the website – competitive rates and quality results from a locally owned & operated company!