Crew teams pulling for lake's health
The effects of a raw sewage overflow last week are still being felt on Lake Quinsigamond, curtailing boating and other recreation as well as limiting high school and college rowing practices at the height of the training season.
"It's kind of gross," said Patrick Diggins, who coaches crew at the College of the Holy Cross and is an official with the Quinsigamond Rowing Association. "They keep checking fecal coliform counts and letting us know daily" if the water is safe.
The problems began on April 16, when a storm dropped 6 inches of rain in a matter of hours. The downpour overwhelmed two waste pumping stations on the Worcester side of Lake Quinsigamond, along the Shrewsbury-Worcester border. Nancy Allen, Shrewsbury's director of public health, said thousands of gallons of raw sewage poured into the lake.
"For 25 hours, the pumping stations were inundated with storm water," Allen said.
Robert Moylan, Worcester's public works commissioner, said he could not estimate the amount of overflow, and that city officials have not pinpointed the cause.
"We've had rains that heavy in the past" without any problems, Moylan said.
The last sewage overflow related to heavy rain occurred in 1991. Last week's break could have been caused by many factors, including pipeline improvements that have reduced leaks, and the shutdown of a sewer main along Belmont Street. The main was taken out of service after it broke in 2005 and dumped as many as 10,000 gallons of sewage into the lake.
Moylan said public works employees treated the most recent discharge with 75 pounds of chlorine, and added that he did not have information about the most recent fecal coliform levels in the lake. Worcester public health officials did not return phone calls seeking a comment.
Allen said high fecal-coliform test results in Shrewsbury prompted her to issue a public health advisory on the town's website banning fishing and boating on the lake. She later limited the ban to the miles-long portion of Quinsigamond south of the Route 9 bridge. The ban was expected to remain in effect until at least yesterday, and also included the Flint Pond area. She said early this week that water tested on the lake south of the Route 9 bridge continued to exceed state bacteria limits.
Lake Quinsigamond is popular for regattas because it is relatively narrow and several miles long. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation notes on its website that the 2,000-meter rowing course on the north side is "internationally recognized as one of the best courses in the world." Shrewsbury High School, Saint John's High, and Holy Cross crew teams use the lake for practices most afternoons during the March-to-May rowing season.
This weekend, five college teams from the region are scheduled to compete in league finals on the lake, to be followed by the Big East championship regatta and the New England Rowing Championships on subsequent weekends, Diggins said.
For three days following the spill, teams were forbidden from practicing on the lake because of the high bacteria levels, Diggins said. Health officials later declared a mile-long stretch of the north side of the lake as safe, but the ruling caused the section to become heavily congested. Holy Cross, for example, sends out as many as a dozen 60-foot shells for practice on a typical spring afternoon.
The Quinsigamond Rowing Association, a 50-member non profit group, cut back the number of boats scheduled to practice by eliminating times for inexperienced rowers and scheduling practice times earlier in the day. Diggins said he gets daily reports on bacteria levels from Allen.
"We let all the kids rowing there on a daily basis know they should shower immediately after practice and cover any open wounds," he said, "just to be careful."
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com. 
