The Fourth of July weekend was a busy weekend for Mauch Chunk Lake Park, officials reported.

On Thursday, the Carbon County Commissioners discussed the holiday weekend that left staff working harder than normal to keep up with the influx of people who visited the county-owned park."It was a busy weekend," said Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein.The park usually opens for business at 10 a.m., but the commissioners said park staff reported cars were lined up at the gate as early as 6 a.m. during the holiday weekend and then opened the park to guests at 9 a.m. to alleviate the congestion that was building.The park was also closed to additional patrons at times over the weekend because of reaching full capacity.Because of the amount of people who spent their time at the lake, the commissioners said there was a strain on staff who were trying to keep up with the facilities and excess litter, both in the trash cans and thrown around the park."The unfortunate part of that is people are pigs sometimes," he said. "Park maintenance had to go in there several times a day to clean the restroom facilities and the beach. People throw the litter on the beach."It was a nice day and it was good for revenue for us but it does create a lot of other issues that people really don't think about," Nothstein said.StaffingTo help for the future, the county salary board on Thursday voted to establish two additional part-time seasonal maintenance positions at the park at an hourly rate of $8.25 per hour.Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said that the county park employees at the lake do a tremendous job but sometimes the number of visitors are just too much for the minimal number of staff at the park sometimes and additional help is necessary. There are currently 18 employees including seasonal park maintenance and rangers, as well as four full-time staff and one park attendant.Commissioner William O'Gurek agreed, saying that park maintenance was swamped over the weekend, which meant other park upkeep like grass cutting was nearly impossible to do."We got to put some money into the place and put some more people out there to work," he said.In addition to maintenance and ranger staffing issues, the commissioners said that finding lifeguards has also been an issue.There are currently 11 lifeguards who staff the beach at the park. Many are college students home for summer break.The county has increased the hourly rate to $10 with an additional 25 cents an hour for each year they return.But the problem still persists.Nothstein said that those thinking about becoming a lifeguard should get certified because it would almost guarantee them a position at the lake as a lifeguard next season.BeltzvilleNothstein pointed out Mauch Chunk Lake Park wasn't the only park to have issues."Beltzville had a lot of complaints," he said.People were parking along the road on other people's properties to get into the state park over the weekend and traffic was backed up for over a mile.Posts on Facebook following the weekend reported litter everywhere, including dirty diapers that were left all around the beach area.A petition to clean up the park began circulating on Facebook and currently has 6,976 signatures.State Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, also posted on Facebook about his office being inundated with calls about the issues at Beltzville."For the past several weeks, I have been working with DCNR to address the terrible conditions at Beltzville State Park. I recently met with Cindy Dunn, secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and we are working to create a task force to address the needs of Beltzville State Park," he wrote.