SOUTHWICK – The Lake Management Committee met April 22 to discuss the upcoming invasive aquatics treatment of Congamond Lake and the possibility of a police boathouse.

Committee Chair Dick Grannells said during the meeting an assessment of the lake is scheduled for May 6 with the treatment itself scheduled for May 17. After the treatment has been conducted, residents around the lake are advised not to drink lake water or use it for cooking until at least May 21. One should avoid swimming in the lake until May 18.

Committee member Eric Mueller addressed the issue of people driving their boats too fast in the lake and seemingly intentionally damaging some of the buoys.

“The buoys we have are not durable enough to take the punishment people intentionally dish out,” said Mueller.

Grannells agreed and said he has observed people cruising up and down the lake at what he guessed was 45 to 50 mph after dark. The boat speed limit on the lake is 45 mph during the day on weekdays, but the limit drops to 10 mph after sunset and on weekends. The limit drops further to 6 mph when one is driving their boat within 150 feet of a swimmer, raft, float, boat ramp, marina or sandbar.

Mueller suggested the problem of people speeding in their boats at inappropriate times could be mitigated by giving Southwick police a boathouse to give them better access to the water for lake patrols at night.

Grannells said that the police boathouse was already in the works to be added to the lake’s north ramp.

“It has already been approved to allow us to put a boathouse on Congamond for the police,” said Grannells, “We are probably a couple weeks away from getting a piece of paper that says to go ahead.”

He said Southwick police are seeking grant funding for the boathouse.

Without the boathouse, Grannells said it can take police up to half-an-hour to get a boat onto the lake, by which point the incident requiring a police response may be done or resolved.

Committee member Norm Cheever said that the Conservation Commission may need to vote on the boathouse as well.