The water sentinels

The Adirondacks are filled with people who work every day to protect the park’s thousands of lakes and ponds.

For some, it becomes a career. For others, like Neil Chippendale and Glen Repko, it’s an opportunity to volunteer time to benefit their community and lake.

For the past four or five years, the two have been taking water samples and performing other tasks on Schroon Lake. It can be tedious—often the sampler used to capture the water doesn’t close, or pieces of mud and sediment get stuck in the device. It can take up to 10 tries to get it right.

The samples and observations they take are sent to a lab where the health of the lake can be diagnosed through the Citizens Statewide Lake Assessment Program. It’s