By Henry M. Holden           

In 2019, Lake Hopatcong, the largest freshwater lake in New Jersey, experienced a major environmental issue. An unprecedented and Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) infected a significant portion, of the lake. The environmental, economic, and social impact of the HAB curtailed use of the lake for almost a year.

The Smithsonian offers a program for student groups to do Smithsonian stories in their YES program. The program provides funding and resources to allow students to discover and digitally document their community’s history.

The Lake Hopatcong Foundation (LHF) was selected to participate in a Students & Foundation Collaborate on Digital History Effort through the Smithsonian “Stories from Main Street: Youth Engagement and Skill-Building” (YES) Program.

“The LHF collaborated with students from the Academy for Environmental Science at Jefferson Township High School,” said Donna Macalle-Holly, Lake Hopatcong’s Grants and Program Director. 

Students Veronica Carrion, Kailey Pasquariello, and Matthew Sinchi developed three short videos which examine the environmental, economic, and social impacts of the HAB which ties in with the theme of the Smithsonian to digitally document their community.

“By presenting this story in our YES video, we aim to show the full effect the HAB had on the lake and community,” said student Matthew Sinchi. “We hope showing the many hardships caused by the HAB will serve as a wakeup call.”

The student team came up with the recommendation to do the story regarding the hazardous algal blooms, on the lake in 2019.

“We are students at the Academy for the Environmental Science at Jefferson Township High School,” said Kailey Pasquariello. “We saw a teacher advertise this and we thought this would be a good opportunity to learn more about the harmful algae bloom and how it affected the community, The environment is something we are all extremely passionate about.” 

“It would fit well into our studies and our internship we need to graduate. The internship is 120 hours so it would fulfill our internship requirement. So, we thought it was a perfect match,” said Pasquariello. 

First, the three students spoke to their advisor about the plans for the video.  “Then we split our parts up. I took the communications part, Matt was the equipment person, and Veronica did most of the editing for the video.  We learned about the algae bloom itself and the community and the many parts of it that were affected,” said Carrion.

“Then we figured out who we needed to interview. We called and emailed people to set up the interviews. Veronica wrote the questions, and we were tailoring them based on who we were going to speak with,” said Pasquariello.

“We spoke with some of the people who were involved in the environmental aspect like Ms. Kati Angarone, who is the Associate Commissioner for Science and Policy at N.J. Department of Environmental Protection, and Mr. Ron Smith from Lake Hopatcong Commission. We asked questions such as, what is the history of the HAB, what was the history of the HAB on the Lake, and what was the HAB?”

The people who were involved in the social and economic aspects were asked how their organizations were impacted by the HAB, and what they were doing to prevent future HABs. How did the residents feel about the HAB? 

“We conducted 15 interviews and they clocked in at about 20 minutes per interview, so there was about 300 minutes or about five hours’ worth of interviews we had to edit down to about eight minutes per video,” said Pasquariello. “These interviews were extremely helpful. We learned a lot from them.”

“I think it was Kati Angarone who told us how important the lake is to the geese and their habitat. And there were people who told us how their business struggled. That is something we must address, because we don’t need this happening again. Everyone was struggling in some way that year.”

The students worked under the guidance of LHF Grants and Program Director Donna Macalle-Holly and Academy for Environmental Science Teacher Dr. Nancy FitzGerald.  

Sinchi and Pasquariello conducted and filmed multiple interviews.  In each video the trio tried to highlight a different solution. “We had professionals giving us their opinions, and we also had what the residents could do, for example, properly maintaining their septic systems, and using less harmful fertilizers, and detergents are “must do” items. 

“There are people who can make changes and are already working on them, said Carrion. “There are a lot of flyers and information pamphlets going around stressing the condition of the lake, and what can be done. There are millions of dollars going into solutions for the lake. The DEP and the LHF are working together to make sure the lake get the proper solutions. The mayors are meeting and working on solutions, and the governor went down to the train station to speak about the issue as well. So, it’s getting a lot of local and state press. People should try and learn new ways, or improve on what they are already doing to prevent the algae from recurring,” said Sinchi. “As we know, these things are getting more frequent.”

“Our video is an enhanced wakeup call. This is real life. We cannot sit around and do nothing. You can be proactive instead of letting the other person do it. Be part of the solution. We need to make the public aware that with climate change, the algal bloom will probably happen again. We must find ways to prevent it because everything around the lake suffers if we don’t.” Pasquariello said. 

The three videos are streaming on Smithsonian Stories: YES Presentation – YouTube. 

Captions:

Lake 4 – 

Lake 5 –