Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast

Diving into Healthy Shorelines with The Watershed Foundation

• Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams

Share episode

Join us on an insightful adventure into the world of lake science and conservation with Lyn Crighton, executive director of The Watershed Foundation. Lyn's journey from growing up on Lake Tippecanoe to leading impactful environmental initiatives offers a unique perspective on how passion can steer one’s career toward making a difference. Her blend of business acumen and environmental expertise underpins her successful leadership, as she discusses the significance of managing watersheds starting from land practices that affect our beloved water bodies.

As we unravel the intricate relationship between agricultural practices and shoreline conservation, you’ll discover the role of diverse cover crops and native plantings in enhancing soil health and curbing erosion. Lyn sheds light on the critical importance of buffer zones that prevent nutrient runoff while advocating for the use of native plants to maintain healthy lakefronts. The conversation transitions from farmland to residential areas, emphasizing how interconnected conservation efforts can ensure the health of local ecosystems and mitigate the adverse impacts of hard seawalls.

We further explore the nuances between clean and clear water, challenging common perceptions with real-world examples of how water quality changes over time. From managing goose populations through strategic plantings to understanding water clarity with a Secchi disc, the episode underscores the critical role of environmental stewardship in preserving the vitality of our lakes and streams. Lyn passionately shares her commitment to water conservation and the communal value of these natural resources, inspiring listeners to join in the effort to protect our water for future generations.

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

Have a question we could answer on the podcast? Send an email to lakes@grace.edu or submit a comment below.

Help us improve the podcast by filling out this short survey: https://forms.gle/MzGSXHcnkEQC8T74A.


Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm your host, susie Light. I get to share some stories and talk about our beautiful lakes with my friend, dr Nate Bosch. Nate, you received your doctorate from the University of Michigan, is that correct?

Speaker 2:

Yes, in limnology, and it's like oceanography, only it's freshwater aquatic systems like our streams and lakes.

Speaker 1:

On this podcast, we're going to dive into some lake science. We're going to meet folks who are passionate about our lakes, just like we are, and we're going to have some fun together as well. Visit lakesgraceedu, where you can learn more about this episode and support the Lilly Center.

Speaker 2:

In today's episode we have Lynn Crichton. She's the executive director of the Watershed Foundation, a good partner of the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, and we're thrilled to have her here on the podcast.

Speaker 1:

We are so excited about today's episode. The doctor is in. Thank you for joining us for the Lake Doctor podcast Today, our guest is Lynn Crichton. Lynn, I've known you since before you were born, since I know your mom and dad, but our viewers may not know you as well, so tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be at the Watershed Foundation at the Watershed Foundation.

Speaker 3:

Okay, well, thank you Susie, thank you, nate. Well, I grew up in Leesburg and on Lake Tippecanoe and my dad was a local and my mom was a Laker and they met at the Tippie Dance Hall in the 60s. Oh, did their parents know they were going? I think so, okay, yeah, yeah. And so, growing up, all of my most treasured times were at the lake and I learned to swim in the lake and all of family came together every weekend and just had a great time together. As I grew older, the lake was still an important part of my life. I could drive the boat before I could drive a car. I had my first job. I could drive the boat. I was a lifeguard. So, loving the lake, I decided to become a lifeguard so I could spend time outside and in the water. And, oh, the time at the lake just opened my world. I met people from all over the country, even when I was a teenager, and so I just loved the lake. Where did you lifeguard? I lifeguarded. My first job was the Tippecanoe Country Club.

Speaker 1:

So overlooking the lake. Yes, nice, nice, and you still are quite active. When I think early morning skiing is your thing, tell us about that.

Speaker 3:

I went today. So sunrise is when you have the only opportunity to get glassy water on Lake Tippecanoe. So yeah, many times a week I ski at sunrise and it is one of my passions.

Speaker 1:

So you're married, you've got a couple of kids, but let's start before you got married. Where did you go to school and what was your school experience?

Speaker 3:

Well, I was just thinking about that on the way here today there weren't environmental science classes in high school. When I went to high school and I studied business, I was very, very passionate about business management, wanted to run a company, and I went to Indiana University and studied business for three really three years, until I took an entry level class in environmental science and found out that there was a career in lake management. And boy did my eyes light up. And then I called my parents and I said I'm changing my major.

Speaker 1:

Your senior year you're changing your major.

Speaker 3:

And they said what can you do with that? And so I talked to my professor, who was telling me what all of his former students were doing, and they were like, ok, I guess, if that's really what you want to do. So I went ahead and did my master's degree in the same school, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, down at IU Bloomington, and my dream was to come home and work on my lakes. But this position didn't exist at that time. The Watershed Foundation did not exist yet. So I went to work for the Department of Natural Resources and I ran a program for the state of Indiana called Hoosier River Watch, oh, and that trains people in volunteer water monitoring. Yes, so I did that for nine years. And then, as my children were just one and three years old, the executive director position at the Watership Foundation was open and I was selected, and we were so excited to move back home to let our kids grow up here in this great community and with the lake experiences that I had.

Speaker 1:

So you know you've heard me say it before that not-for-profit, and the Watershed Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. Not-for-profit organization, it's a tax code, it's not a business model. So your business experience has really benefited the Watershed Foundation Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of nonprofits struggle in that way without that business knowledge. So it's really great for the TWI. It worked out perfectly.

Speaker 1:

Good. So the Watershed Foundation says that their work begins on land. Tell us about that, and what does that mean?

Speaker 3:

I think that one part of our name, the watershed, is the thing that many people don't even know what that is. What is a watershed? That's the first thing. I often carry a map around with me. When people ask, what do I do? I have to show them a map and explain what the watershed is.

Speaker 3:

So the watershed is an area of land that drains to a particular body of water, and a watershed can be very small, like a mud puddle has a watershed, or very large, like the Mississippi River watershed is 40% of the continental United States Wow, big watershed. And then there's smaller watersheds within that. So the Watershed Foundation, when we were formed, was focused on the land that drains to Lake Tippecanoe and that we were formed in 1997. And then about 10 years ago, we expanded to include the next watershed downstream as you go down the Tippecanoe River, and that encompasses all the land that drains through Warsaw and Winona Lake. So the watershed foundation is focused on the land that drains through Warsaw and Winona Lake. So the Watershed Foundation is focused on the land that drains the headwaters of the Tippecanoe River. And the part about being on the land is that water pollution sources and problems begin on the land. So the solutions must also begin on the land. Our mission is to protect and improve water quality in that land by really stopping pollution before it gets to our lakes and streams.

Speaker 1:

So sometimes pollution might be called nutrients Nate. How does that impact the lake nutrients and pollution?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so pollution pretty much is anything that's in the wrong place at the wrong time right, and so it could be good things that are in too much abundance. In the case of nutrients, that would be a good example. So nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus are most commonly looked at in aquatic systems are good things. We need some nitrogen and phosphorus that helps make up the base of that food chain where the aquatic macrophytes, or the weeds and the phytoplankton, also known as algae, they start to grow from those nutrients and it moves on up the food chain. But as we see in most of our lakes in our county and throughout the watersheds that you guys work in, we've got too much of a good thing, too much nitrogen and phosphorus, and so that causes an excess of weeds and an excess of algae to grow and then that can start to have negative effects on how people can recreate and people's health. The ecosystems themselves start to break down and don't function as they should.

Speaker 1:

So, lynn, tell us about something new that the watershed is doing.

Speaker 3:

A new program that's just under development is called Beyond Lawns, and the purpose of that program is to provide alternatives to turf grass on people's lawns, and it could be an individual residence, so you could decide to maybe convert part of your lawn to native plants or a prairie garden, or even a large landowner like a school or a corporation, or even a church.

Speaker 1:

I love the idea of planting native plants in my yard. I can see my husband saying in my yard. I can see my husband saying now wait a minute. So how can I convince him? Like, what are the pluses? What else can I do with my yard so that we can play in it?

Speaker 3:

We can still protect the environment with it. Absolutely. You don't have to convert your entire lawn to native plants. You can still have your beautiful lush green grass that people can play on and sit on and enjoy and grandkids can recreate there. But if you have native plants, you also can have. While it smells very nice, many of them have beautiful flowers in different seasons and you can appreciate the bees and the hummingbirds and the butterflies that will also come visit your property and maybe reduce my water usage in the amount of sprinkling my yard I have to do Absolutely, and the amount of lawn mowing that needs to be done, ah, Now, that might just convince him.

Speaker 1:

That might just convince him. So those native plants would trap potentially harmful things from going into the watershed. Do they help shorelines? Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

If you utilize native plants along a shoreline, that very much helps, has a lot of benefits. It holds the soil in place, but native plants have very deep roots and one of the reasons that there's, like we call them, a clean water superhero, because they help infiltrate water into the ground. Instead of it running off on the land, which could create erosion, actually pulls it down into the ground and adds the water to the groundwater. And so along a shoreline that's one of the benefits it has. But also just anywhere, in any property. It doesn't have to be along a shoreline, but just in town or in the community. Putting native plants in helps reduce that runoff effect, reduce the velocity of water coming off all those properties and going down through the storm drains and into our lakes and streams.

Speaker 1:

So it doesn't just benefit the land and the water, but aren't there side benefits to things like native insects? And birds and wildlife.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so many of our native plants are also good pollinators and those help the birds, bees and butterflies.

Speaker 2:

I think too, susie, we could add in when speaking of turf grass, like what Lynn was talking about, and having native grasses instead, for example, and more of a prairie type habitat.

Speaker 2:

Those turf grass it's going to be like bluegrass or fescues or maybe some ryes.

Speaker 2:

These aren't necessarily native species.

Speaker 2:

They have very shallow root structures rather than deeper ones like the natives, like Lynn was saying, and so the soil gets very compacted and so it's running off faster, whereas Lynn said with infiltration with native plants, whenever these plants are growing, these native plants, some of the roots are living and growing, others are dying, and so there's kind of this recycling going on amongst the roots, and so there's old root channels that are no longer filled with a root.

Speaker 2:

Where the root has decomposed, that now are pores for water to be able to infiltrate down into the water rather than run off. And so that's what Lynn was talking about. With helping to recharge groundwater, slow water down, we get more earthworm activity, oftentimes in native plants as well, and so they're moving up and down in the soil profile and that's creating little channels of water and sometimes the roots find those channels and start to grow down in that really good organic soil and so it all starts to work together in a system just like our natural ecosystems do, and that's kind of what we're starting to mimic in our own properties and everything works better with diversity and better ecosystem health.

Speaker 1:

So you know, we talk often about collaboration and partnerships and I'm really glad to see the partnership between the Watershed Foundation and the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams and thank you really for being here and sharing and giving face to that collaboration. How does the Watershed Foundation partner with our ag producers in our community?

Speaker 3:

Thank you for asking about that. We work with so many partners, but our really biggest partners are with our farmers and the ag community in our watershed. As we are talking about what begins on the land, most of our watershed is agricultural land. About 70-75% of the watershed is ag land and so, as you think about what's running off the watershed, it's mostly coming from farms. So in order to make really our biggest impact, we need to work closely with our agricultural community, and we've been very successful with that. We have many willing agricultural partners, and what we are talking with them about and encouraging and helping to support is the implementation of conservation practices on the land, and these conservation practices are things that are going to reduce the amount of nutrients and sediment that's coming off the fields and going into the lakes and streams. The farmers don't want to be losing their nutrients and soil Back to the business model right.

Speaker 1:

They're pouring a bunch of fertilizer and they don't do this. They don't pour a bunch of fertilizer on the land because economically that's not smart for them to do. So you're helping with those kind of practices.

Speaker 3:

Conserve yeah, conserve what is put on the land and also in terms of soil erosion, keeping that soil on the land. You don't want it to end up in the lake. You need it to grow your crops on the field. And so we employ two watershed conservationists who are are farmers or work in agronomy, have agronomy degrees, and who are known locally and have good credibility with the farm community. One thing we learned early on is that Lakers should not talk to farmers about how to do their jobs.

Speaker 1:

So agronomist would be some expert who could help bridge that, exactly, exactly, and you have two on staff.

Speaker 3:

We have two that contract we contract with and one really works in Whitley and Noble counties in the headwaters of the Tippecanoe River watershed and one really focuses in Kosciuszko County. As we were talking about the benefits of native plants, one of the practices conservation practices we've been encouraging farmers to implement or just try, is called cover crops.

Speaker 1:

I know about cover crops, yes, so applications for those know about cover crops. Yes, so applications for those sometimes are by air. Yes, what kind of cover crops are being planted in our community?

Speaker 3:

I don't know. Well, there's a lot of different cover crops, different rye and oats, and there's something really great called a cocktail mix and that's a combination of different cover crops that might include turnips and radishes and hemp and sunflowers. And when Nate was talking about those native plants, bring diversity to the soil, was talking about those native plants, bring diversity to the soil. That's why we put a cocktail mix of cover crops on the farmland, because it adds diversity to that ecosystem and the different roots and the different microbial life that will come in because of the different kinds of plants is really it's really beneficial. It's always better to have diversity than a monoculture.

Speaker 1:

We are learning that a lot during these podcasts Diversity in the types of nutrients, the diversity in the types of fish in a water, in a lake.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, plants as well, and plants.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is exciting stuff, lynn.

Speaker 2:

The plants sometimes will have some different timings as well was when they germinate and when they start to come in, and the goal oftentimes is to have a living plant then on that crop area as much of the year as possible to intercept rain and be able to keep, as Lynn was saying before, keep runoff of sediment particles or nutrients or pesticides or other things from leaving the field and getting into one of our waterways.

Speaker 3:

And it builds soil health, and that's really one of the most important missions that we have in terms of agricultural conservation is building soil health, and that means adding organic matter, having not compaction, a lack of compaction good organic matter and helping water infiltrate and helping water infiltrate.

Speaker 1:

So if a farmer is listening to this broadcast podcast and they want more information, about how to connect with your specialist.

Speaker 3:

Who do they reach out to? They can just contact our office in North Webster we're actually located in the North Webster Community Center and just reach out to us, you know, by email or phone, and we'll get someone out there to talk to them so cover crops?

Speaker 1:

what about buffer zones?

Speaker 3:

yep, filter strips and buffers are a very big part, and that's actually also just plants.

Speaker 3:

so describe what that, what that looks like so a filter strip or a buffer is generally on the edge of a field between where the crops are growing and a stream, ditch or road, so at the edge of a field, and the idea is that it will reduce the amount of erosion from runoff. It would capture that from runoff. It would capture that. So growing plants that are generally warm season grasses or cool season grasses, those are planted but not harvested, so you put them next to the crops to just help filter out anything that might be coming off the land from runoff.

Speaker 3:

Within the field there's often something planted called a grassed waterway and so where the stream starts to build because there's topography in the field, you'll start to get erosion. If it gets really bad, it's called a gully and to prevent that you plant again tall grasses in the middle of a crop field. But you don't, you just leave it growing there. So you don't crop that, you don't put crops in that area and it helps keep the. It keeps the field from eroding and also helps slow that loss of nutrients.

Speaker 1:

So that's mainly going to be in a field that has some topography, some hills and valleys, probably not in a flat field.

Speaker 3:

It wouldn't be needed. A grass waterway wouldn't be needed in a flat field. You might still need some filters.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and those filter strips also connecting back to the lakefront property owner, that's something that we encourage them to have too. So it's not just our agricultural producers but folks who have some slope in their yard. Often lakefront property owners have that as it slopes down towards the lake. Having a filter strip of native plants along the seawall or along that shoreline helps intercept those things as they're coming down towards the lake, just like things that might be coming off an agricultural field.

Speaker 1:

So that leads us to ask about healthy shorelines. So I understand about planting between, perhaps, a seawall of some sort, but what does a healthy shoreline look like?

Speaker 3:

Thank you for asking that there are so many connections between the practices that we are encouraging on farmland with residential areas. You know the idea of using native plants and filters, like you just mentioned, and again coming back to the idea that the more natural something is, the better for the environment, environment. So we humans for a long time have worked to reduce erosion from the shoreline by putting in a hard seawall concrete or vinyl, but a hard surface seawall and that has held the land or held the lawn in place. Held the land in place, but it's not so good for the lakeside place. Held the land in place, but it's not so good for the lakeside. When those large waves come hit that seawall, whether they be from just wind or from boating activity, the energy of those waves hitting the seawall actually hits the wall and comes down and scours out in front of it.

Speaker 3:

So scours underneath the seawall, scours out in front of it so scours underneath the seawall. Scours, yeah, underneath and in front, okay, and then pushes that sediment that's in the bottom of the lake back out into the lake, which is adding nutrients back into the water, also makes it cloudier because it's adding that sediment back into the water, but then that wave energy just continues back across the lake. It's like a big bathtub effect of waves just everywhere, um which one of the things that happens, and and and it's partly also because of our cultural idea of what we thought the edge of a shoreline should look like. But native or aquatic plants can't grow in front of a concrete seawall. That's getting that kind of wave energy, because if they tried to root they would just get swept out to the lake by those, by that wave energy.

Speaker 3:

If so, one way we can help make a shoreline healthier, if we already have a concrete seawall, is to add glacial stones, rounded stones from, you know, from our farm fields, and pretty big, yeah, pretty big. An average of, I think, 10 inches is what's recommended by the DNR and you can add those just right in front of that seawall. And those stones break up the wave energy. But they also provide habitat. That's missing entirely from that ribbon of life along the lake's edge and it provides habitat for little macroinvertebrates and even provides an opportunity, a place, for frogs and turtles to come up. So that's one example of a healthier shoreline is just adding glacial stones in front of your seawall. If someone doesn't already have a seawall, you can just put in a glacial stone seawall, no concrete or a mixture of native plants and glacial stones. That's really the most natural thing If you can, if you have a lot of waves, a mixture of the plants and the stones will hold your shoreline and provide those ecosystem benefits.

Speaker 1:

So one of the fascinating things you did on Winona Lake was to help the shoreline near the splash pad for a very specific reason. Could you talk about that project please?

Speaker 3:

Well, there were many reasons, including all these benefits to the lake from the wave energy. But if you do have that nice riparian buffer of plants along the shoreline, Explain riparian. Would you like to do that, nate? Sure, I'd love to.

Speaker 2:

So riparian area would always be that sort of transitional area. So a riparian zone along a creek would be that sort of forested edge that's not being farmed. A riparian wetland sometime would be in certain locations, and so if you have that riparian zone, that can be similar to the filter strip or buffer zone that we've been talking about.

Speaker 3:

So in that riparian area next to the lake, if you have plants that are at least knee high, it will deter one of our favorite waterfowl from hanging out along the lake making a big mess. You're talking geese, I'm talking, yes, canada. Well, yes, canada. Geese and also mute swans are another one, yes, and one of the problems at Winona Lake Limitless Park. So the shoreline was eroding and we didn't have a very good ecosystem, but we had mowed lawn right down to the edge of the lake and it's just like a big welcome sign to the geese who just hang out and make a mess, which really can cause a public health problem. There was goose poop everywhere at that park.

Speaker 1:

There was.

Speaker 2:

There was, there was.

Speaker 3:

But we partnered with the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams to actually do a study to enumerate the impact of the shoreline on the amount of goose poop in the park.

Speaker 2:

So with this goose waste we've got E coli and that can be a human health threat, and with the splash pad being there and people using the public swimming beach, people pulling up on their boats as well, kind of in a little bit of a sandbar area there, lots of people using the water, but could be an unsafe situation with all of this goose poop everywhere, and so with more plants around the geese are. With the taller native plants, the geese are nervous there could be a predator lurking around, and so they don't want to hang out as much and so they don't leave their droppings then as much either, and so a good opportunity to do a little research and show the implementation project.

Speaker 1:

And a good collaborative effort between you both. That seems to be very successful, a beautiful solution. So, besides Limitless Park, are there other places that we can see? Really good examples of a healthy shoreline.

Speaker 3:

The Warsaw Parks Department has been undertaking healthy shoreline projects for about 10 years now, I would say, and almost all of the land they own along Pike Lake and Center Lake have been planted into healthier shorelines, mostly with the native plants and leaving some areas for fishing so little places within the plants where you can get all the way into the shoreline. And we're just have underway a final section at Pike Lake. That's just underway now and we are also working with them at the public launch at Wynonna Lake, the park. There we're also improving the shoreline.

Speaker 1:

So, lynn, I know the watershed that you serve is quite large, but our listeners may not really have a geographic map in their head about what areas you cover. Give us a footprint of your watershed.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I wish I had a map here I could show you. That would make it so much easier. But I can explain the headwaters the very, very beginning of the Tippecanoe River watershed is north of Columbia City and the first lake in the watershed is Crooked Lake, which is also a very deep natural lake, very clean, lovely lake. So parts of the watershed are in Noble and Whitley counties and then they flow down towards Webster Lake, barbie Lake and then into Lake Tippecanoe. So that part of the watershed is about 114 square miles and that's when we were founded in 1997. We only focused on that area and then about 10 years ago the state of Indiana came to us and asked if we would consider expanding. Because we had such success in the headwaters, we wanted to see the same success come through Warsaw and Winona Lake and Chapman Center. Pike and Winona Lakes are part of this added new for us geographic area. That is the next watershed in the Tippecanoe River watershed.

Speaker 1:

So places like Cherry Creek, walnut Creek, deeds Creek, deeds Creek, tippie River, yep, are all part of your watershed. They're all part of our watershed, of your watershed. They're all part of our watershed. And water in the north part of our county ends up in what water body after its journey?

Speaker 3:

Such a good question. So yes, you've probably talked before about the Continental Divide which goes through Kosciuszko County and the streams in the northern part of our county that drain through Wawasee and Syracuse and Dewart and Wabi. They all drain to the St Joseph River and eventually into Lake Michigan.

Speaker 1:

And then eventually the Atlantic Ocean, the.

Speaker 3:

Atlantic Ocean. Yes, so they are part of the Great Lakes watershed, but right between Syracuse and North Webster is that north-south continental divide and that's where our watershed starts. So you could straddle that line and when it's raining water that's, on one hand, is going to Lake Michigan and on the other, goes to the Tippecanoe River, then the Wabash, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico and then the Atlantic Ocean and then the Atlantic Ocean.

Speaker 1:

So it's kind of circular. It Mexico and then the Atlantic Ocean, and then the Atlantic Ocean. So it's kind of circular. It all ends up in the Atlantic Ocean eventually.

Speaker 3:

So we are all in the Atlantic side of the east-west continental divide, which is the Rocky Mountains, and the west side all goes to the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker 1:

Lynn, when you talk about the Watershed Foundation and your experience on the water, your eyes just light up. Tell us about where does that passion come from? Why is this so important to you?

Speaker 3:

I think our lakes are just so important to many people. There's a spiritual aspect to being around water. It just is calming, relaxing, joyful. It brings people and communities together, families, and it's just such an important thing. And I think it's also something that we tend to take for granted, because we have these beautiful water bodies, but they've just always been here and they're just always going to be here, but they don't realize that they're actually quite fragile and need stewardship and we need to take care of them if we want them to be healthy and an important part of our lives, an important part of the quality of life in our community.

Speaker 1:

No life without water, none Nate. No, I see the same sparkle in your eyes when you talk about water and the Lilly Center. What drives your passion for water?

Speaker 2:

I love how water is a connector. It's a connector for people, as Lynn mentioned. It brings families together. Hearing the stories in our lakes around Kosciuszko County, where four generations all get together over the 4th of July, and if it weren't for that lake, many folks say their family would be fragmented across the country or across the world. But that's the one time that everybody comes back and that's the place that everybody wants to come back to, and so that's really special. Our lakes help connect various industries in our area and help drive our economy and over $300 million just in our county coming in every year because of the lakes, and so it connects us in that way. It helps connect us to a sense of peace and refreshment. And some people like to go fast on boats or personal watercraft or skiing, like Lynn likes to do. Some people like to be slow on a kayak or just kind of sit maybe on a stand-up paddleboard out in a lake or a creek somewhere. Some people like to fish.

Speaker 2:

Sunset pontoon boat rides. Yes, I'm enjoying that more as I get older, I think. But and there's a spiritual sense there too, and Lynn even used the word stewardship from a biblical stewardship standpoint, which is the direction we come from at Grace College and at the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. We have a responsibility. We've been blessed with over 100 lakes and 600 miles of streams here in this county and we have a responsibility to be caretakers of those water resources, and so I love the connection. I love bringing scientific expertise into that and how we can care for things better and meeting great people like Lynn and folks from other organizations that we get to work with.

Speaker 1:

So one of the takeaways that I have gotten, especially from today, is that, while I don't live on a lake, I still have a stewardship, a responsibility to manage water on my property so that it is not adversely affecting our lakes and streams. Thank you, lynn, so much for sharing your wisdom, your passion, your excitement for our lakes and the super good work that you're doing at the Watershed Foundation. And, nate, thank you, too, for the work that you and all of your friends at the Lilly Center are doing. Good collaboration, guys, appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Hey, I'm Dr Nate Bosch with the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. Let's talk about clean water versus clear water. Are they the same? Are they different? How do they compare to each other? First off, clean doesn't necessarily mean clear, and clear doesn't necessarily mean clean. We can have water that's very clear in color. We look at this water right here, in fact right now it's really clear in color, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's clean. There could be pesticides that have run off from people's yards or golf courses or agricultural areas. It could also be toxins from algae, like we study here at the Lilly Center, which could be harmful to people or their pets. There could be E coli bacteria, which could also be harmful to people if they get in the water and ingest some of the water with higher E coli levels. So just because it's clear doesn't necessarily mean it's clean. Now let's look at the reverse. If it's clean, does it have to necessarily be clear? Could we still have safe water even though it's not clear? That can be true as well.

Speaker 2:

I think of tannins that come in the water. We're right now here in northern Indiana in the fall time, and so you can see some of the leaves, maybe even floating around here in the water, on the water along the banks of the water. As those leaves decompose, they give off tannins. Tannins are the chemicals that plants have in them to try to avoid herbivores from eating those plants right Rabbits and deer and those sort of things. And those leaves, as they decompose, they naturally give off tannins. Tannins is a type of dissolved organic carbon that makes the water look a little bit more brown in color, a little bit stained. Some of you might have even drank dissolved organic carbon this morning If you're a tea drinker or a coffee drinker. That's dissolved organic carbon that's leaching out of that plant material in the tea or in the coffee and coming into that water and then staining the water a darker color. So just because we have that coloration doesn't mean that that water is unsafe. Definitely it's not clear, but it could still be considered clean.

Speaker 2:

Now let's think about how streams might change throughout the year as well. We're standing in a lake here, but we have streams that flow into our lakes and those streams can change color and they can be clear or clean at different times as well. I think of a big snowmelt event where lots of water is running across the landscape and washing into a stream or maybe after a big thunderstorm in the summertime washing a lot of sediments along with the water into that stream. The water can look sort of a murky brown, almost like chocolate milk. That would be an example of water that's not clean and not clear. So you can see there's all different combinations of clean versus clear, or just one or the other.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's talk about how we measure lake water that's clean or clear. Clear is probably the easiest thing to measure. We have a white and black Secchi disc which we lower in the water and depending on how far down, you can determine the white from the black on that disc. That gives you a relative sense of how transparent or clear the water is pretty easy to look at. How clean the water is, that's a little bit more complicated. We do sampling for e coli and algae, toxins and nutrients and we look at lots of different aspects of those things at different times of the year and in different water bodies. But the goal is for clean and clear for our local lakes and streams. So how can we get to clean and clear water bodies here in Indiana and throughout the Midwestern United States? Well, one thing is where we're standing right now there's a great example Having native plants along our shorelines, both on streams as well as on lakes, are going to help those water bodies be clean and clear.

Speaker 2:

The native plants are going to help filter water. As it comes through those native plants, water is always running downhill and so it's usually going towards a water body, and so those plants have roots that are going deep and helping pull nutrients out and pulling water in, and it's slowing down the water as it's headed towards that water body, and so these plants are helping this lake be more clean and more clear. We can also keep yard waste from getting into the lake. This time of year there's lots of natural leaves blowing in, but we don't want to unnaturally put leaves into the lake on purpose, because those are just going to cause more decomposition, which brings to more nutrients, which leads to more weeds and algae growing in our lakes. We also want to be mindful of the type of fertilizer that we use on yards throughout the watersheds around our lakes and streams and not have phosphorus in those fertilizer chemistries. So I hope that helps clear up for you the difference between clean and clear water in our local lakes and streams.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. Join us next time. It's bound to be fun.

Speaker 2:

Listening to this podcast is the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover some tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.

Speaker 1:

We'll see you next time. The doctor is in, thank you.