By: Tim Langer – Lake Management Committee

Fall in Northeast Ohio offers many beautiful and vibrant colors along the tree line.  Often those colors create a scene that could easily be mistaken for paint on a canvas.  Soon those beautiful colors paint the ground and so begins the yearly labors of picking up leaves before the first snow blows.

Some residents may be inclined to simply blow their leaves into the lake or culverts.  When leaves are blown into the lake, the leaves accumulate on the water surface, especially in the backs of coves and along certain areas of our shoreline.  As the leaves begin to decompose, the leaves will accumulate on the lake bottom around docks and places where people swim and fish.   The decomposition of the leaves is what eats up dissolved oxygen (DO), which degrades water quality.  It makes for a very rotten, squishy, unpleasant lake bottom.

The decomposition of those leaves in the lake contributes to;

• The depletion of dissolved oxygen (DO).
• Nutrient overloading, which later leads to algae blooms.
• Filling in of lake and cove areas.

What YOU can do:

• Not blow leaves or grass clippings into the culverts, street or lake.
• Mulch your leaves when mowing. Mowing more often will make it easier on you and allow your mulching mower to do the hard work.  Think of the mulched leaves as tea leaves.  When they are mulched into small pieces, the nutrients can be extracted much easier by water or rain and feed the soil reducing the need to use commercial fertilizer.  And it’s free!
• Bag your leaves each fall before they blow into the lake.
• USE our COMPOST SITE. This is a great Roaming Shores resource! (keys available at the RRA office for property owners)

With the help of all our residents and continuing to act a stewards of Lake Roaming Rock, our combined efforts will continue to maintain and improve our water quality.

Remember to Love the Lake and Be Lake Responsible