About Moon Lake

Located in the quaint town of Theresa, NY, Moon Lake is a 243-acre slice of heaven. Thanks to its remote location and small size, it's relatively untraveled, leading to an ecosystem that has significantly fewer invasive species present than other publicly-accessible lakes.

There are approximately 100 landowners around the lake, and we all use the lake for different purposes and have different goals in mind for how to make it better. The Moon Lake Preservation Council (MLPC), which existed historically through the early 2000s and was recently revived in 2021, is working to incorporate as many ideas as feasible to accommodate the needs of the landowners while protecting the water quality.

In 2022, the MLPC funded water quality testing through the Citizens Statewide Lake Assessment Program (CSLAP), with the goal of developing a baseline to determine how the water quality in Moon Lake has changed over time, and what water quality issues it is currently facing. Because one season of testing is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusive data from, a priority of the MLPC is to continue CSLAP testing over the next few years so we can get a more comprehensive idea of the current state of the lake. Prior to 2022, the most recent CSLAP data collected from Moon Lake was from 1996.

While the most recent CSLAP data is over two decades old, we do have some more recent data that we can look at to assess where the water quality of the lake currently stands. Because the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has a public boat launch on the northern shore of Moon Lake, they are invested in monitoring the lake's water quality. As such, they have done additional research on the water quality in Moon Lake, including issuing a Total Maximum Daily Load for phosphorus in the lake in 2007, and in 2015, the DEC released a Lake Classification and Inventory (LCI) Report for Moon Lake.

Even more recently, in 2019, the DEC published a fish survey for the lake. This survey was conducted because, until 2015, Moon Lake was stocked with Tiger Muskellunge by the DEC. Another priority for the MLPC is to see if we can get the lake back on the list to be stocked to improve the fishing experience on our lake.

The above-listed goals and priorities are truly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the MLPC hopes to achieve in the coming years. The most important goal is to foster a sense of community among the landowners on the lake, because we truly all benefit from this beautiful resource, and we should all be invested in its wellbeing.

We hope that you will contribute thoughts, ideas, and suggestionss to us, the MLPC, as we continue to grow and work to serve both the lake and its inhabitants.