The immediate shoreline around the lake provides a critical protection component to the water quality. When an immediate shoreline has deep rooted vegetation around it, and particularly a mixture of low growing ground cover, mid height bushes and tall trees, the water entering the lake from the shoreline is much cleaner. The mix of plants will pull out the nutrients and other pollutants in stormwater that would otherwise enter the lake.
Rain produces stormwater runoff… and strong rain events can produce greater amounts of runoff. All that rain has to go somewhere! Unfortunately runoff often carries contaminants and pollution, and if it's within the Candlewood Lake watershed, it will likely almost certainly enter Candlewood Lake.
Rain can't penetrate impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways, walkways etc. Without preventative measures like a rain barrel or rain garden, that rain will end up in the street gutter. From there, it enters a storm drain and eventually ends up in a body of water like Candlewood Lake. If you live on Candlewood, without preventative measures, your storm water runoff will flow directly into the Lake. Unfortunately, this also means increased development (roads, parking lots, pathways, houses, roofs, etc.) only add to the runoff that enters the lake -- since that stormwater can no longer enter the earth at that location.
Storm water picks up pollutants like auto fluids, lawn chemicals, and fertilizers which then enter street gutters and storm drains. These storm drains do not flow to water treatment centers. They flow directly into Candlewood Lake.
The watershed of Candlewood Lake is the area that all water that enters Candlewood drains from (shown in gray in the above map). That means in many areas it goes far beyond the immediate shoreline - in fact many miles beyond in towns like New Fairfield and Sherman, and even extends into New York State! The watershed of Candlewood Lake is roughly five times the actual size of the Lake. That's not a very large watershed compared to a lot of lakes in the country, but keep in mind that Candlewood's main source of water is the pumpup from the Housatonic River.
If you live in the Candlewood Lake Watershed, your rainwater runoff is impacting the quality of water in Candlewood Lake.
