Why This Website?

On December 3, 2010 an all-day workshop was held at the Will O‘ The Wisp to discuss the issues surrounding the long-term well-being of Deep Creek Lake.

Various groups and organizations that have a stake in Deep Creek Lake got together for a day of talks and discussion about how to keep the lake healthy and enjoyable.

In recent times many things have happened to Deep Creek Lake that have the potential to negatively impact the economic well-being of the region.

Residential expansion in the last decade, particularly of second homes, has been enormous. As a result increasing numbers of people have sought out the area for their summer and winter vacations, with a resulting increase of the use of the lake for recreational purposes.

Recently, the weather and aging infrastructure have had an adverse impact on the lake environment, albeit temporarily. This has focused attention on the issue of the long-term viability of the lake.

The workshop that was held on December 3, 2010 posed the overall question: “How can all interested parties coordinate their efforts and work together to ensure the economic viability of the region.” The emphasis of the discussions held generally focussed on how to keep the lake healthy.

One general consensus from the above mentioned workshop was that the dissemination of information to the stakeholders and the general public is a difficult task, and is probably not addressed adequately.

This website contains an experiment in disseminating information about Deep Creek Lake only.

The idea behind the website is a question and an easily understandable answer and the justification for the answer, all stored in a database. The justification has to do mostly with links to laws and/or regulations that form the basis for the answer. You can find the question by several methods: 1) by specifying a phrase or keywords; 2) by selecting a topic; 3) by selecting a category, or 4) by emailing us a question if you can't find the answer. There are also provisions for submitting your own question(s) and answer(s).

Since real progress seem to be very slow, some of us haven taken it upon ourselves to actually try to produce some meaning full results. We call ourselves SPORE, a playful acronym constructed from words that we relate to: Stakeholders, Professionals, Old, Retired, Experienced. I hope you get the drift.

SPORE's mission as we see it for now, and it can change, is to clarify the confusion and misinformation regarding various Deep Creek Lake issues that keep coming up at virtually all of the public meetings.

Try out the website. We hope it is useful. Send us your comments, if you like it or nor not or if you have some suggestions for improvements, or even if you can help us.

A listing of the organizations that were represented at this first workshop can be found here.