Last week we had a couple of Lake George-area stories, in case you missed them.

One was about Dog Beach, a public area next to the state’s Million Dollar Beach at the southern end of the lake. If you’ve walked by there lately, you may have noticed the construction equipment. Dog Beach is getting turned into a stormwater filtration project. Some of it will go back to open, public space, but it will be smaller than before. The goal is to filter out nutrients, bacteria and sediment.

We also saw some benthic mats, once used to control Eurasian watermilfoil, removed from the lake. David Wick, director of the Lake George Park Commission, said this was the way the commission used to treat dense beds of milfoil, but these mats are now just trash sitting on the lake bottom. Divers helped remove them last month.

Up into the middle of the park, we learned that the Masten House in Newcomb has a probable buyer. The owners, the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry College Foundation, confirmed the property is under contract. A reminder, too, there is a conservation easement on the property with the Open Space Institute. That means the land and buildings will remain mostly the same, but whether or not the property will be open to the public or used for education (as was originally intended), remains to be seen.

Editor’s note: A version of this post first appeared in Gwen’s weekly “Adirondack Report” newsletter. Click here to sign up.

AE Commercial Diving staff remove milfoil mats, no longer useful, from the bottom of Lake George. Photo by Gwendolyn Craig