By Jill Hoffman -
After algal blooms and public health concerns drew attention to the fragile nature of local water quality, a group of concerned citizens teamed up with the Upper White River Watershed Alliance to secure a grant to study pollution in the reservoir and where it is coming from.
The land area that drains to Geist Reservoir encompasses a 215-square-mile, six-county area. This watershed (drainage basin) is known as the Upper Fall Creek Watershed and includes both suburban and agricultural land uses.
The watershed study will make use of several new sets of data from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the Central Indiana Water Resources Partnership (a collaboration between Veolia Water and IUPUI’s Center for Earth and Environmental Science). Hundreds of water quality samples have been taken in the tributaries and ditches upstream of the reservoir, as well as within the reservoir itself.
The current watershed planning project will use these findings to help understand “hot spots” or land use areas that have a disproportional impact on water quality. Field observations, natural resource assessments and public input will help the project team interpret the water quality data and identify opportunities for future restoration projects and pollution prevention projects.
The public will be asked to help identify concerns about pollution or land use problems at an upcoming public meeting expected in early May. Researchers involved in the watershed project are also working to better understand the reservoir response to incoming pollution by conducting detailed blue-green algae studies. These studies are aimed at better understanding the types of algae present, the conditions that cause algal blooms, and the risk of algal toxins.
Algae studies will continue throughout the fall of 2009, and results will be coordinated with the ongoing watershed management planning project. Results of 2008 algae sampling and an introduction to the 2009 sampling plan will be presented at the public meeting in early May. Meeting details will follow in the next atGeist newsletter.
I’ve been watching the new growth in our cove since last year. It started out as a small patch and consistently grew larger over the summer 2008- it has returned early spring and is spreading even farther out towards the lake, the cove and our boat dock area – I am really worried about this eventually taking over – is this the algae we are watching ?
I just read more on this – what I am seeing is more like a weed, or grass under water and floats just near the surface – what is this? It looks like the weed you would put in the bottom of a fish tank, but its brown