2024 – LMC Year in Review

By D.Ernes – Lake Management Committee

As we come to the end of 2024, we look back on the recreational season that we just completed. This past year we continued with the programs that have shown success and evaluated new ideas to help as we move forwards with our short and long-term lake management plans. This document gives a brief overview of the past year.

We have continued with the program involving application of algaecides during the season to control the growth of Harmful Algal Blooms. As part of this program, we also evaluated ultrasonic buoys as a non-chemical alternative. We employed a handheld sensor to measure water quality parameters including algal densities throughout the season. The algaecide treatments (one and a half total) continued to keep the algal blooms under control during most of the year. The impact of the major storm in early August did make the last treatment somewhat less effective, requiring spot treatments in a few areas. But as seen in the past few years, we continue to keep the algal toxin levels well below the EPA guidelines.

The ultrasonic buoys were met with limited success. We will continue the evaluation next year as well. The sensor data yielded a number of positive results. The data clearly showed the rise in algal densities as the summer progressed, giving us additional data to make treatment decisions.

As far as the beaches are concerned, while the algal toxins remain under control, we saw more exceedences for the bacteria levels than in past years. There is no direct reason to explain this and we will look into additional testing should this trend continue into 2025.

The data collected by our consultants show similar results to past years. Surprisingly, the watershed phosphorus levels were stable throughout the season. The in-lake data was fairly consistent until we experienced the storms in August.

We will be starting the planning for 2025 soon. In the meantime, Happy Holidays.