I was speaking with someone over the weekend about this issue. Apparently there were about 8 houses with failed septic systems on the lake, those have been fixed. Rumor has it there is also a house on the lake whose owner was a prolific fertilizer. Not sure if that has stopped. Those are all issues that need to be addressed, but.....
I posted a link to a sewer line failure on rt 25 in Center Harbor a week or so ago that didn't receive any comments. The break released about 1,500 gallons of sewage. According to my measurement on google maps, the approximate location of break is about 1,500 feet from the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, much closer to a little stream that feeds the lake. From the pictures in the link you can see that most of the sewage ended up in the lake. What surprised me is the quickness of the contamination from 1,500 feet away. These issues are not just lakefront property owners issue.
I've purchased two lakefront properties in the past 20 years ( bought and sold one, presently living in another.) Each sale required a septic inspection, similar to Title 5 in Massachusetts. I thought this was for all NH RE sales but figured out from a post here, it is just required for properties covered by the wetlands act. That's a little shocking to me, if you sincerely want to clean up the water in NH, these inspections should be required for all RE sales in NH.
The Lake Kantaska issue should be resolved next summer which hopefully will resolve the Blackey cove issue. I would guess a majority of homes in Blackey now have been redone, meaning septic systems are relatively new and not failed. It would be nice to know that homes in the watershed, which can be miles from the lakes but still have a big impact, are held to the same standard. We'll see.
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