Water temperature has been relatively stable, staying just under 80 degrees for the past month or so. I was thinking we would get a bump in water temperature after four days of 100 degree high temps, but that did not turn out to be the case. I guess we are far enough past the high temps and it got down into the 50’s Sunday night. The wildfire smoke limited daytime high temps so that helped moderate lake temperature as well.
Water clarity increased dramatically from July 24 to August 2, which reflects the improvement brought on by the alum treatment. The benefit was short lived however since transparency decreased again on August 14, but increased slightly on the 21st. Another alum application is scheduled for the end of month so a second round of improvement is expected
Phytoplankton in Lakewood Bay has increased quite a bit since June. We are seeing more cyanobacteria along with diatoms so we will have to keep an eye on the trend. Currently the volume is not concerning, but we will see if the July 31 sample shows continued cyanobacteria growth. These graphs will be updated once we receive data from our analyst.
Phytoplankton in the main lake are not very high, but are trending towards cyanobacteria. Our alum application this week will strip out a lot of the cyanobacteria and the phosphorus they feed on, reducing the overall population for the remainder of the summer.
West Bay is an amazing generator of diatoms, with a peak of over 25 million um^3/ml in late May. This will persist throughout the year with diatoms dominating, but at a reduced overall biovolume. As of July 17th the bay is still dominated by diatoms, but with a much reduced population compared to the late May peak.
