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5:18 pm
Hi Folks,
My name is George White and I’m the Chairman of the Leaser Lake Heritage Foundation. As you’ve seen from our website at http://www.leaserlakeheritage.org, Leaser Lake was once a trophy Musky lake. However, due to seepage through the dam, the lake was drained in 1991 for repairs. Unfortunately, that was a typical “Government Job” and those repairs didn’t fix the problems. So in 1999 the water level was lowered by 20 feet for safety reasons and little has been done since then to correct the problem.
The Lake is owned by PFBC, leased to Lehigh County and was originally built with Federal funding. So no one wants to take full responsibility for the repairs. However, many of the government agencies have offered to “pitch in”. That’s were our Foundation has stepped in. We have taken on the responsibility of bringing together the available funding from multiple sources to get the dam repaired. Initial construction estimates put the total cost of repairing the dam (correctly this time) at $5.6 million. At this time, we have $3 million pledged by various agencies. Therefore, we hope to get the engineering design work started within the next 6 months. In the meanwhile, we are working on our elected officials to provide additional funding. We are also pursuing various Grants and corporate donation to help in the funding.
Located at the base of the Blue Mountains, Leaser Lake in surrounded by public land, preserved farmlands and forest. When full, the Lake covers about 117 acres and has over 4 ½ MILES of shoreline. With all of the shoreline, this lake is very productive when healthy. Boats are limited to electric engines, which keeps this a very tranquil place to fish.
The Foundation is also looking at the “Big Picture” for the lake and surrounding public land. We will be working on a comprehensive Lake Restoration Plan which will include Fish Habitat, Wetlands Restoration, Facilities Improvements and Fisheries Management.
Please visit our web site and consider becoming active in the Leaser Lake Heritage Foundation. We meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the New Tripoli Firehouse. Committees are still forming, so there’s lot of ways you can participate in the effort. I have been in contact with Bob Jones of your club and we will be looking into how the two groups may work together on the restoration of Leaser Lake.
There is no reason why this lake can not be a Trophy Musky Lake once again! <<<<><<<
Tight Lines....
George White
5:00 am
March 26, 2004
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George,
My understanding is that the PFBC has no plans to stock muskies in the lake, even if the dam were full. I remember something about a policy to not stock new trout lakes with muskies or walleyes because of a fear that the trout would get eaten. I also recall a debate over whether or not Leaser was a "new" lake or not. Is this still the case?
Chris
2:01 pm
Hey Chris,
To repair the dam, the lake will have to be drained completely. Therefore, we will be starting from scratch as far as fisheries managemant goes. I have talked to Dave Houser, from the Fisheries Management section of the PFBC and he has offered to let us work with the PFBC in developing a new Fisheries Managment Plan for the lake. Many of the people in the Leaser Lake Heritage Foundation are interested in seeing Walleye and Musky return to Leaser Lake <<<<><<<.
The more public input that we can get the better... Right now, we're focused on the lake. We hope to kick-off development of the Lake Restoration Plan (ie. wetland restoration, fish structure and fisheries managment) later this year.
Our next meeting is June 13th at 7pm in the New Tripoli Firehouse.
George
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