Mount Glen Lakes dams will be repaired
West Milford. The Mount Glen Lakes dams will be repaired with the help of a $1.6 million loan from the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection Dam Restoration program. The township will co-sign the applications.
| 28 Dec 2021 | 02:40
The Mount Glen Lakes Association, like many of the other lake communities in the Township of West Milford, has been faced with the problem of aging lake dams and is doing something to remedy the situation.
The Association is the operator of two dams located at Upper and Lower Mount Glen Lakes that have been determined after engineering investigations to be in need of repair, improvement and rehabilitation.
And, like other lake associations, they have decided to participate in a program in which the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Dam Safety Section offers loans to private entities to effectuate dam repairs with the condition that the municipality within which the dam is located signs a loan agreement as co-borrower.
No expenditure of township money is involved.
The Association secured an initial NJDEP Dam Restoration Loan in the amount of $1,600,000 for which the township agreed to sign the required the necessary co-borrower agreement. The initial loan did not cover the cost to repair the dams with an additional $3,000,000 estimated to be required in order to fully cover the expected cost.
The township council, recognizing the need for the additional funds, has adopted a resolution endorsing submittal of the application to NJDEP. It was determined that the repair, improvement and rehabilitation of the Upper and Lower Mt. Glen Lakes dams and execution of the DEP loans are in the best interest of residents of the Mount Glen Lake community. The resolution granted the township to execute a co-borrower agreement acceptable to the township.
The Mount Glen Lakes community is one of many communities in the township that started as a second home vacation community and with homes gradually converted for year-round use as the years passed. Dudley and Clara Shippee started the Mount Glen Lakes development in the late 1920s, early 1930s in the same era as other lake communities. The township was without zoning laws back then. The Shippees sold individual lots and in 1931 they initiated rules and regulations specifying that just property owners and their guests were permitted to bathe and fish in the lakes.
After Clara’s death in the early 1950s L. C. Larsen Construction Company became involved and still later in 1937 Mount Glen Lakes was incorporated.
