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Natural History

Lower St. Regis Lake was generally unimpacted by human activity until 1958, when Apollos A. (“Paul”) Smith arrived and began construction on the hotel. The building of the hotel, the influx of new houses and the increase in traffic had a great impact on the water quality of the lake. In the 19th century the hotel and surrounding cottages were dumping sewage along with wastewater produced by guests into cesspools and then it eventually made it’s way to the lake. Wastewater may contain high levels of nutrients that promote algae blooms and problems to the ecosystems such as decreased availability of sunlight. In the 1970’s there were thick blooms of cyanobacteria in the lake which was a result of the grey water contamination.

In the year 1907 Paul Smith purchased a dam which was originally used to run a sawmill He used this dam to raise the level of the lake in order to store water for hydropower. In the 19th century many spruce and white pine around the lake were cut down in order to build three golf courses, which affected the water quality of Lower St Regis Lake. Unpaved roads near the lake also affected the lake’s water quality is that they typically contain sodium and chloride concentrations less than 0.55 and .24 mg/L which has an effect on the lakes water quality.

Due to all the negative impacts of pollution the Lowe St Regis Lake property owners started to become concerned within the water quality in the early 20th century. As a result, they signed a resolution to ban draining sewage and or wastewater into the lake. Even with the efforts to help the lake the water quality still was declining. The efforts of cleaning the water continue into the current day. Paul Smiths College currently has a sewage treatment plant where is filtered the lake water by holding solid waste and filtering the water to be cleaner. The Adirondack Water Shed is also a group which is active in helping restore the lake. Over all there is a lot of efforts to help restore the lake quality but the water quality may never return to the way it was before humans started to pollute it.