WATERFORD – It’s a steep, dirt road providing access to the summit of Hawk Mountain, a popular recreation area that affords beautiful views of the Lake Region countryside.

But Hawk Mountain Access Road is also one of the major contributors of soil erosion that eventually finds its way into Keoka Lake.

Fixing the severe erosion on the access road is a top priority for the Oxford County Soil and Water Conservation District, which found 64 erosion sites in the course of a watershed survey completed last summer.

The district has joined with the Lakes Environmental Association, the Keoka Lake Association and the town to sponsor a public meeting to discuss the erosion problem on the Hawk Mountain Access Road. It is off the paved Hawk Mountain Road off Mill Hill Road.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in the Waterford Town Office on Route 35.

“It’s such a popular area I don’t think anyone’s talking about closing it off,” said Jeff Stern, project manager for the soil and water district. The town doesn’t own the road, but has an easement over it for public safety purposes.

A few years ago, firefighters fought a serious woods fire on Hawk Mountain and used the access road to bring equipment up to the summit. However, the access road itself is not normally passable by anything other than four-wheel all terrain vehicles, Stern said.

“It’s a rough road,” said Stern. “And people like to have their access for four-wheeling.”

Eroding soil, even from sources far away from the lake like the access road, carries phosphorus as a “hitch-hiker,” draining first into Bog Brook and then Keoka Lake, Stern said. Where the access road begins there is “a huge gully,” Stern said. “It’s a mess.”

Stern said the soil and water district doesn’t seek to act as an enforcer, but as a mediator of an agreement regarding use of the access road that will satisfy everybody.

The district has around $70,000 available in federal Clean Water Act grant funds to use in eliminating soil erosion sites identified by the watershed survey, he said. Work on cleaning up some of the sites began earlier this year, and will continue through next year.

ggeraghty@sunjournal.com

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