Lost Lake board looks to protect watershed

GROTON -- Looking to expand the role of the Lost Lake Sewer Advisory Committee, members regrouped, brainstorming ideas with the aim of approaching the Board of Selectmen for a change in their mandate.

Originally established to study septic conditions at Lost Lake, the committee's recommendation to build a $12.9 million sewer system that would have connected the neighborhood with a treatment plant in Ayer was rejected by a 2012 Town Meeting.

One of the reasons for the rejection was due to uncertainty that the source of the contamination of the lakes was coming from neighborhood septic systems. Instead, residents insisted that a more thorough study of the area around the lakes be undertaken to make sure.

As a result, a reconstituted Lost Lake Sewer Committee was appointed and consultants hired to proceed with testing, which proved inconclusive.

Findings however, did indicate the existence of unexpected "emergent contaminants" at different points, including those near the Water Department's Whitney Well site.

Emergent contaminants is a new category of potential pollutants of ground water that is little understood in how it travels in the groundwater or how much of a threat to people its presence might be.

Comprised mostly of prescription medicines, testing at two sites on the lakes indicated the presence of five kinds of drugs, including tranquilizers, nicotine, insect repellent, pain relievers and medicines needed to control seizures.

Among the more traditional pollutants in the lakes such as nitrates and phosphates, initial results of the testing indicated relatively low concentrations of each.

The results of the testing left the Advisory Committee with little support for the installation of an expensive sewer system, particularly if that system could potentially address only part of the contamination problem.

"The testing raised more questions than it answered," said committee Chairman Jack Petropoulos at the committee's Jan. 23 meeting.

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Lost Lake board looks to protect watershed