Mullica Hill residents are rallying to help save Ewan Lake and dam from being decommissioned and drained by the county in the near future, something they feel would cause more harm than good.
A petition started by resident Gregory Gallagher on Change.org has garnered about 1,722 signatures toward the goal of 2,500 as of July 19.
“It’s a vital part of our community,” Gallagher said. “The Ewan Road dam is pretty old, and the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) said we’ll have to decommission it or tear it down.”
Gloucester County plans to decommission the lake of 18 acres because it would be cheaper than refurbishing it, but work has yet to begin. The road the lake sits on is county owned.
Resident concerns about that plan include its potential effect on local wildlife, given that a number of fish reside in the lake, and taking water that can be used by the Harrison Township Fire Department. Ewan Lake is used as a fill site for the department’s fire hydrants, according to Chief Matt Cardile.
Gallagher and other residents made their concerns known at the Harrison Township Committee meeting on July 5 and an earlier county commissioner’s session on the same day. Their efforts so far have been for naught.
“The county doesn’t want to pay for it and neither does the township,” Gallagher maintained.
The township committee discussed the situation at its session on July 17, when Mayor Louis Manzo provided an update on his meeting with county Administrator Chad Bruner and the engineering firm Pennoni, the county’s pick to decommission the lake.
“Because this is all private property, that’s another hurdle,” Manzo explained. “Someone suggested, ‘Well, maybe you could just buy all of the properties?’ (To which) the county administrator said, ‘Well look, if you guys were gonna consider doing something other than decommissioning, I think you would have to buy all of the properties.’
“There’s no way, the (township) solicitor said, we could use taxpayers’ dollars to improve private property,” the mayor added. “We’re still stuck in the same place we’ve been in for the better part of 18 months.”
Manzo also said the dam renovation has a price tag of $2 million, based on a 2011 evaluation, and that its worth has likely doubled since.
