Jerry Truman remembers a time in the spring, 20 years ago, when he couldn’t see his fishing lures in the water from the end of his dock on Clearwater Lake. That’s not the story anymore. “I’m amazed. I can see my crappie lures in 14 feet of water in the spring,” Truman said. “We are doing something amazing out here.” Clearwater Lake, Grass Lake, Lake Louisa, Lake Betsy and several others in the area sparkle more now than they have in two decades, a recently released Clearwater River Watershed report states. Phosphorus is at an all-time low in Clearwater Lake and chlorophyll-a is on a continuing downward curve. Clearwater River Watershed District managers released their 2003 Water Quality Report at their regular meeting Wednesday, Jan. 14. The report shows that most of the lakes have shown significant and even dramatic improvements over the last 20 years. The east end of Clearwater Lake had only 22 parts per billion of phosphorus and the west end has 27 ppb. Two decades ago, the phosphorus was four to five times higher than it is now. Increased phosphorus concentrations are associated with increased algae growth. Algae are tiny aquatic plants that sustain the growth of most other aquatic life forms; when overabundant, however, they can contribute to reductions in oxygen in the water, causing fish kills and even shifts in the number and type of fish and other aquatic animals. Algae blooms can also harm aesthetic and recreational values. Lakes with phosphorus concentration of less than 20 ppb are generally free of negative effects; higher concentrations are accompanied by increasing effects, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials. Chlorophyll-a levels in Clearwater Lake were at 7 ppb and 14 ppb, which are about two times lower than 20 years ago, the report said. Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants that allows them to create energy from light (i.e., photosynthesis). Measuring chlorophyll indirectly measures the amount of photosynthesizing plants found in a sample. In lake water, these plants would be algae or phytoplankton. Chlorophyll is a measure of all green pigments whether they are active (alive) or inactive (dead). Chlorophyll-a is a measure of the portion of the pigment that is still active; that is, the portion that was still actively respiring and photosynthesizing at the time of sampling. As the president of the Clearwater Lake Association, Truman has been one of the many people to help clean up his lake. He and others like him have instituted cleaner practices. “It shows that our efforts are paying off,” said Norm Wenck, the watershed district’s engineer. “In 1980, we started our $4.4 million restoration project.” The project included conservation practices for farmers to reduce runoff and contamination of the Clearwater River watershed and it also included safer lawn and septic practices by lake homeowners. Truman said his association holds yearly educational conservation classes and distributes non-phosphorus fertilizers for lakeshore lawns. “It works out good,” Truman said. “We just have to educate people how to protect the water.” Wenck agrees that education plays a major role in protecting the watershed. “We have made people aware of good conservation practices and that it’s not that difficult to institute. We hope they see the benefit and continue to keep up the good practices.” Wenck attributes a large part of the Clearwater River’s and its lakes’ cleaner waters to conservation practices adopted by farmers. But not all of the lakes in the study showed improvements. Two, specifically, showed significant and even alarming contamination. Swart Watts Lake and Cedar Lake, east of Annandale, both showed significant contamination. “We are concerned about Cedar Lake because the tributaries that feed into it have a significant phosphorus load,” said Merle Anderson, the CRWD’s administrator. “It’s definitely a lake we will be watching closely.” The CRWD board appointed managers Marv Brunsell and Mark Kampa to a committee to look into what is causing problems on Cedar Lake. “It’s a troubling trend on Cedar Lake,” CRWD chairman Roland Froyen said. “We have more development out there and there are problems from more flow into the lake.” “Alagae growth has been terrible since the 2002 flooding,” said Bill Pallies, treasurer of the Cedar Lake Assoc. “We are stressing the whole phosphorous issue and not using phosphorous fertilizers on lawns, but at this time we’re not looking at treating the lake.” Swart Watts Lake was flooded in 2002 by heavy rains in Howard Lake that flowed into the lake. “The rain washed out the culvert under the railroad tracks near Hwy. 55 and Co. Rd. 6,” Wenck said.”The runoff from that storm severely impacted Swart Watts, which drains into Cedar Lake.” Swart Watts had 421 ppb of phosphorus in 2003, the report states, which is double what it was in 1999, the last time the lake was tested. Cedar Lake had a phosphorus level of 52 ppb, which is double what it was in 2001. “We need to react,” Froyen said. “We need to do some monitoring. It’s one of the areas we need to look at for some remediation.”
