® Scrambling L Vol. 115 No. 10 March 7 to March 13, 2004 for victory! in youth basketball Page 7 SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF THE DALLAS & LAKE-LEHMAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS Harmful substance reduced at lake By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff HARVEYS LAKE — In the 1980s and early 1990s, algae blooms threatened the lake's health and viability. As chemi- cals and solids from lawns, roads and stream banks flowed state’s largest naturally occurring lake, residents began seeing pungent unchecked into the blooms with regularity. Eleven years and $300,000 worth of projects later, the amount of contaminants enter- “It’s getting better, but it’s going to take time.” Fred Lubnow Princeton Hydro ing the water has been dramati- cally reduced, said Dr. Fred Lub- now, one of the scientists work- ing to correct the problem. Studies performed in 1993 de- termined 230 excess pounds of phosphorus were washing into the lake each year, creating an aquatic environment ideal for al- gae. Regular blooms brought undesirable odors, pockets of lime green water and for some people, an uncomfortable aller- gic reaction. The borough, its Environmen- tal Activities Council and con- tracted firm Princeton Hydro set to work on solving the prob- lem. Lubnow said last: month that as a result of a series of projects begun in 2000, a third fewer pounds of the chemical are entering the water. Hun- dreds of thousands of dollars worth of additional projects are in the works. “Harveys Lake has had some problems in the past. It’s getting better, but it's going to take time,” said Lubnow. See LAKE, pg 3 Sure sign of spring Ted Montross of Dallas gave the old buggy a springlike shine last week, on one of the first days since the year began that the temperature and sunshine made outdoor activities comfortable. Nips ; tame. HH Aa FOR THE POST/CHARLOTTE BARTIZEK | students,” Lake’s cottages are becoming rare breed By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff HARVEYS LAKE — If Pru- dential Realtor Bob Cook gave you a boat tour around the lake, he'd likely whisk you past a small white home on Lake- side Drive. At $239,000, the re- modeled cottage is the least expensive waterfront home he has on the market. “That little white one is a good candidate for teardown,” he said. “It has 50 feet of lake- front — because of the way zoning is, you need 50 feet to build a boathouse cabana.” Cook, a real estate agent who specializes in lake proper- ties, said he began to notice a trend about three to four years ago: People buy smaller water- front cottages, demolish them, replacing them with homes up to twice their size on the site. “I recently sold one in the $350,000 range. They tore everything down but the foun- dation. Theyre now recon- structing it into a three-story home.” He estimates the lake’s older cottages are being replaced at the rate of about one per year. “The days of the small cot- tages around the lake are only going to be on the second tier (not the waterfront),” he said. In addition to complete tear- downs, people increase the size of homes along the water in other ways, Cook said. Some homeowners wait for their neighbors to sell so they can purchase the property and merge the two. Others recon- struct older, “more - stately” homes. There are a number of prop- erties in the process of being torn down and redesigned, Cook said. Much of the activi- ty is occurring near Point Breeze on the southwest por- tion of the lake, an area of pre- ferred lakefront. Along with a doubling of size comes a hefty increase in value, Cook said, estimating that retooled properties will likely fetch twice as much. Even so, he doesn’t believe the trend toward larger homes at Harveys Lake shuts out a class of homeowners that was- n’t shut out before. “People with money have al- ways bought lakefront. Being See COTTAGES, pg 2 Brownie Girl Scouts Abigail Downs, left, Troop 2610, and Kelsey Monahan, Troop 2615, finished their bracelets while they enjoyed a snack. Those attending were continually shuf- fled throughout the night to encourage them to meet girls from other troops. Scouts celebrate Thinking Day Over 100 .Girl Scouts from Service Unit 119 attended the annual Thinking Day celebration recently at Dallas High School. The event commemorates the fact that every Girl Scout is part of a worldwide network of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides. Katie Gilligan, Troop 2480, Dallas, or- ganized the event as part of the requirements to earn the Silver Award, the highest award for Cadette Girl Scouts. Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts from 15 area troops pro- ceeded through stations where they learned about countries that have Girl Guides; learned a song in French; and were taught how to focus on abilities. Each girl also made a braided Friend- See SCOUTS, pg 3 POST PHOTO/ ERIN YOUNGMAN College Misericordia Sophomore Suzanne Kazimi (left), assisted by Dallas High School student Noreen Sarieh, teaches Arabic to a group of elementary students enrolled in the district’s new Foreign Language Academy. From left: Emily Collins, Suzanne Kazimi, teacher; Noreen Sarieh, Tamara Nijmeh, Omar Nijmeh. Speak Arabic anyone? By ERIN YOUNGMAN Post Staff DALLAS TWP. — Nina Desilva has learned a lot in the two months she has been attending Dallas School Dis- trict’s new Foreign Language Academy. As interested passersby look on, the second grader proudly recites num- bers one through 10 in He brew. One of the classroom’s visi- tors is Superintendent Dr. Gilbert Griffiths, who periodi- cally stops in to see how the district's newest afterschool program is coming along. Desilva’s Hebrew teacher, Einat Davidowitz, comments on her students’ enthusiasm for learning the language and notes how quickly they are picking it up. “These girls are such good comments the teacher. “They are already learning to pose questions.” As Davidowitz moves from teaching numbers to animals, her own enthusiasm is infec- tious. From one room to the next, children of all ages are singing, playing and having a ball learning Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and Hebrew from teachers, many of which are native speakers. The students’ families have paid $100 to enroll them in the new afterschool Foreign Language Academy, the brain- child of high school foreign language chair Candyce Fike. Fike has many reasons for spearheading the program, from socio-political to eco- nomic, to just her sheer love of other languages. “Children accept different cultures much more readily than adults. We all know when we get them young, their minds are’ like little sponges,” she commented. Fike has been working to organize such a program for several years. She tried a pilot program of sorts over a sum- mer break and found parents very receptive. Griffiths said when the pro- gram idea was first tossed around three years ago, the is- sue was, “How can it have consistency?” “With all of the new state standards coming down, it See LANGUAGES Board to review project By ERIN YOUNGMAN The Post DALLAS TWP. - The school district’s board of di- rectors voted unanimously last week to hire the Gattuso Group L.L.C. to conduct a fi- nancial review of the com- pleted middle school renova- tion project. Grant Palfey, the district’s business manager, said the review will examine all proj- ect-related expenditures. Gattuso will be paid up to $10,000. After the meeting, Board President David Usavage said the decision was sparked by board members’ concerns that the district may have over spent on the renova- tions. “We want to make sure if we have overspent, how it happened,” he said. Palfey said the original budget for the project was $16.8 million. The renova- tion, which included the ad- dition of a swimming pool, was completed last fall. Board members Frank Natitus and Usavage said de- termining where and why the district went over budg- et will help them prevent making similar mistakes with future projects. Palfey hopes to have the fi- nal costs for the middle school project available at April's meeting. In other news, members of the administration and board of directors congratu- lated several members of the high school diving team for finishing in top district spots. Alaric Eby, Whitney Bolton and Sarah Rupert will travel later in the month to the state competition at Pennsylvania State Universi- ty in University Park. Eby and Bolton were first place district finishers, Rupert placed third and Shannon Dingle, twelfth. The group is coached by Kim Perez. Ninth grader Alicia Evans was also congratulated by the administration and board for being selected as the First Place winner of the Times Leader Short Story Contest. Evans competed against 75 other entrants from Dallas as well as en- trants from several other districts. INSIDE THE PosT 12 Pages, 2 Sections Calendar.................... 12 Obituaries.................c.css 5 SCHOOL ir hires Sem’s Rocket Club is ready honor students for blastoff Page 10 Lake-Lehman Junior High School Page 10 Franklin Twp. Auxiliary helps out Page 6 ¥ How To Reach Us News: 675-5211 thepost@leader.net 15 N. Main St. Wilkes-Barre PA 18711 Advertising: 970-7102 Subscriptions and Delivery: 829-5000
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