Water quality data 2005-2009

Water quality data for the past few years:
I test for temperature which controls for the other tests.
pH which show how acid or alkaline the water is.

Nitrates which looks at pollution or organic wastes leaching into the water.
Dissolved Oxygen which looks at the saturation of oxygen in the water, this is what the fish breath.
Biological Oxygen Demand, this is how much decomposition is occurring in the lake, or in other words "how is the muck competing with the fish for oxygen.

Phosphate, phosphate is usually the limiting factor in plant and algae growth. Phosphate is naturally occurring but also comes from fertilizer and cleaning products. Often it leaches from septic fields to a lake from excess cleaning products down the drain.

I am only including water quality data for selected years to show trends . I am also only including data taken mid summer around July 4th.

sorry blogspot is not good at columns.


                      2005 2007 2009
water temp        72  75      73

pH                     8.5   8.5   8.5


nitrate               .02      0      .1


Dissolved oxygen7.5mg/l 8.0 mg/l 7.9mg/l


phosphate       3mg/l  0mg/l   2. mg/l

In general water was very clear with little turbidity. All indicators show a very healthy lake.

Tests of biological oxygen demand (BOD) were varied depending on how stirred up the lake was. The muck decomposes and uses oxygen. This is good to remove the muck but lowers oxygen levels. Low oxygen levels can effect fish and other animals.
Fish populations look healthy even with the minimum habitat. A few logs and brush piles afford good areas for our fish populations. (Some brush debris under a dock will allow little fish protection to grow up to be big fish.)

A concern was the trace amounts of phosphate. this is usually caused by fertilizer runoff or use of phosphate high cleaning solutions. Please refrain from fertilizing lawns but if you must, use no phosphate fertilizer. This is indicated by a 0 in the center number of the fertilizer (20-0-20) . Phosphate encourages algae blooms. Many cleaning solutions contain high amounts of phosphate too. When washing boats/docks use low phosphate cleaners or wash boats up on the bank.