LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (NEWS10) – The Lake George Association, a conservation and protection group focused on water quality around Lake George, has released a new tool for those who live on or visit the lake to help out with protection. The Lake Protector Profile App is designed to help property owners around Lake George evaluate their home or business’ impact on the Queen of American Lakes.

“Our LGA Lake Protector Profiles provide need-to-know information that helps guide participation in protection for all who love Lake George,” said Lake George Association (LGA) President Eric Siy. “And the LGA team is here to help to ensure we succeed.”

The web app, accessible by computer or phone, uses the physical aspects of a property to determine lake impact. “Lake Protector Profiles” have been generated for over 9,300 developed properties across the Lake George watershed, using public information and geospatial mapping information. Potential avenues for threats to the lake are broken down into eight categories: Slopes, trees, soil, impervious surfaces, critical environmental areas, water resource areas, septic systems, and streams.

The profiles are designed to cover water quality threats, first and foremost. Threats can include excess nutrients, which can come from stormwater runoff and failing septic systems and lead to the growth of harmful algal blooms. The LGA says that about two-thirds of the approximately 6,000 septic systems in the Lake George watershed need replacement or repair. The effort to reduce nutrients in the lake goes hand in hand with other work the LGA, the town of Lake George, and Warren County have all been involved with.

“Just as we’ve put Lake George on a low-salt diet through the LGA’s Lake George Road Salt
Reduction Initiative, we need to put it on a low-nutrient diet to help reduce the risk of HABs,”
said Siy. “But unlike road salt reduction, which is highly dependent on the work of local
municipalities, nutrient-reduction requires the help of every individual property owner.”