A $300,000 state grant will fund a two-year pilot program for a so-called “lake keeper” to oversee water quality monitoring and improvement projects at Lake Ronkonkoma, Long Island's largest freshwater lake and an area that was once a booming summer resort.

Suffolk County officials on Wednesday announced Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences under Christopher Gobler, a coastal ecologist and professor at the university, will lead the project.

Problems have plagued the lake for decades, from stormwater runoff and dumping to flooding, erosion and Canada geese droppings that contain high concentrations of pathogens, according to a 2023 Watershed Management Plan compiled by the county’s Department of Economic Development and Planning.

At a news conference on t

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