"Kirk Meloney first started going to Lake Kanasatka as a boy. He remembers the crystal-clear water in the small lake – you could see straight to the bottom, even in parts of the lake that were 12-feet deep.
Meloney spent the formative years of his childhood at his grandparents’ lake camp, and it was the lake in large part that drew him to later make New Hampshire his permanent home in the mid-1970s. But in the past two years, Meloney has watched with dismay when the lake changes – a bright green film the color of Gatorade starts to grow across its surface, the clear water turning into pea soup as potentially toxic cyanobacteria blooms cloud the once-clear water.
A couple years ago, Meloney started volunteering for the Lake Kanasatka Watershed Association; now, he’s been its president for three years, and cyanobacteria blooms – a type of bacteria that lives in the water – is one of the major problems he’s trying to tackle.
“I want my lake, little Lake Kanasatka, to be as crystal clear as it was when I was a child for my grandchildren, who are 3 and 5. And the way things are going, that’s not going to happen,” he said."
Amanda Gokee reports for the New Hampshire Bulletin December 6, 2021.
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