
What is New Jersey’s deepest lake?
With an entire ocean at our doorstep and 120 miles of Atlantic coastline, most attention to watersports is focused on "the shore".
New Jersey is also home to many lakes and ponds that provide plenty of activity and pleasure for hundreds of thousands of people in the Garden State. There are about 1,700 lakes in our state.
That seems like a big number, but many of them are man-made.
In general, the lakes in the northern part of the state are much larger and deeper than the southern end. This has mostly to do with topography.
The northern end of the state is more mountainous and South Jersey is basically flat.
When they dammed up some waterways to create reservoirs and lakes up north the geography of the hills and mountains naturally made for deeper lakes.
In my area of Medford and Medford Lakes where these are generally man-made, the average depth is no more than 4 to 10 feet under normal conditions.
The deepest lake in the southern end of New Jersey is Union Lake at 27 feet at its deepest point.
The winner for the deepest lake in the state goes to Merrill Creek Reservoir in rural Harmony Township in Warren County.
It is not the largest but it is the deepest at 225 feet and was created in 1998 from water coming through a tunnel connected to the Delaware River.
New Jersey's largest is Lake Hopatcong has a maximum depth of about 58 feet but covers some 2,400 acres and four-square miles in Morris and Sussex Counties.
Rounding out the top five largest lakes in the state are Round Valley Reservoir, Wanaque Reservoir, Greenwood Lake and Spruce Run Reservoir. All of these offer great water sports and excellent fishing for natural species.
We take for granted how lucky we are to have an ocean in our backyard, but also some pretty nice lakes and ponds as well.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.
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