DATE: Sunday, July 13, 1997                 TAG: 9707130077

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   48 lines

SUFFOLK HOMEOWNERS SAY THEIR LAKES BRING BEAUTY AND PROBLEMS

The real estate ad reads: Lakefront home. Wildlife. Flocks of ducks. Bask in the beauty and tranquility of the great outdoors.

It's a dream come true.

But the dream doesn't last for long.

Soon, the wildlife disappears; the view diminishes with the stench of dead fish; the lake fills with silt and algae.

It has happened elsewhere. Now, it's happening in Suffolk.

Ask residents in the Wood Lake subdivision off Nansemond Parkway.

Talk to residents in Harbour View, like Gary Herman of Castlewood or Cathy M. Mushenski of Burbage Lake.

They once thought the lakes in their back yards were beautiful. But not anymore.

``We used to have a nice slope in our back yard around the lake - now it's just a nice cliff,'' said Mushenski. ``The erosion is a terrible problem. Our homeowners association just had a meeting not too long ago.''

City officials say the lakes are another example of the effects of development. The city owns a larger manmade lake, Lone Star, in Chuckatuck, a quaint village with subdivisions growing up around it.

Planning Director Paul E. Fisher said that, once a relatively undeveloped environment is transformed into one with rapid storm water runoff due to rooftops and paved areas, it naturally causes problems.

The lakes, Fisher said, help remove the oil, grease and herbicides from the runoff, and keep them from running into larger rivers and tributaries.

But once they're built, sometimes they meet planning requirements and sometimes they don't, he said. By then, it's too late.

Ultimately, Fisher said, the problems have to be fixed by the homeowners association.

Harbour View Developer Robert Williams said he will pay to fix the erosion problem in Burbage Lake, but the algae problems are the responsibility of homeowners.

Fisher said the city is examining measures to make sure that there's room around the lakes for trucks to make repairs. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot

Bess Wicks, left, and Cathy Mushenski talk about Burbage Lake in the

Harbour View section of Suffolk. The lake is cleaned by the

homeowners association, but an erosion problem will be fixed by the

developer.

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