Tagged: Lake Norman

If you fish on Lake Norman, you may have heard about a new warning this week from state and county health officials. They advise most people not to eat striped bass from the lake more than once a week, and for pregnant women and children to avoid the fish altogether. It’s because they’ve detected PCB’s in the fish. These chemicals, once common industrial lubricants, were banned in 1979 because they were found to cause birth defects and to be a likely cause of cancer. PCB’s have been a problem in other bodies of water for years, but this is the first warning about them in Lake Norman. So we called Captain Gus Gustafson. He’s been taking people fishing on Lake Norman for more than 20 years.

The top headline in the October 1st, 1959, Mecklenburg Gazette proclaims “Great Economic Progress is Seen.” A few days earlier, Gov. Luther Hodges visited the Catawba River to set off the first dynamite blast for construction of the Cowan’s Ford Dam – the site of a Revolutionary War battle.

The writer of the story called it the “beginning of a new era in the history of the Catawba River Valley.”

No kidding.

Mecklenburg County is lifting its 30-year ban on public swimming at Lake Norman - possibly by the summer of 2015.

Currently only people with boats or lakefront property have access to swim. A series of drowning deaths in the 1970's prompted the swimming ban.

"Over the past few years there's been a lot of growing requests and need and recognition that 'Yes, we need to have public swimming on our lakes,'" says Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Deputy Director Michael Kirschman. "We have three major lakes - all in Mecklenburg County - with no public swimming facilities."