Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast

Weeds, Wakes, & Chemical Spills: Partnering with the Winona Lake Preservation Association

• Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams • Season 1 • Episode 19

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What if your local lake could be healthier, cleaner, and more beautiful than ever before? Join us for an insightful conversation with Chris Cummins, president of the Winona Lake Preservation Association, as he shares his passion for lake conservation and his proactive strategies to combat pollution. From tackling the aftermath of a local chemical spill to working hand-in-hand with environmental expert Dr. Nate Bosch from the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, Chris reveals the power of community collaboration in safeguarding our precious water resources.

Navigate the complexities of lake management as we explore the critical balance between recreational use and environmental preservation. Discover the innovative measures, like the Healthy Shorelines Initiative, that are being implemented by partners like The Watershed Foundation to counteract shoreline erosion caused by wake boats. With Chris and Dr. Bosch, we unpack the historical context of Winona Lake’s management, including infrastructure challenges, and discuss the community's evolving role in maintaining water quality amid changing environmental conditions.

Finally, we delve into the fascinating world of lake aging and conservation strategies. Learn how Winona Lake is charting its course through different trophic levels and the ongoing efforts to combat cultural eutrophication. Chris and Dr. Bosch highlight the importance of reducing nutrient input and the transformative impact of practical, science-based solutions, like using native plants along shorelines. With engaging analogies and real-world examples, this episode underscores the vital role of community stewardship in ensuring the health of our lakes for generations to come.




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

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Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm Suzy Light and my co-host, dr Nate Bosch, is a professional lake nerd.

Speaker 2:

That's true. I received my doctorate from the University of Michigan in limnology, which is the study of freshwater lakes. In today's episode, we're excited to have Chris Cummins. He's the president of the Winona Lake Preservation Association and we're going to talk about how lake associations can benefit our lakes.

Speaker 1:

We are so excited about today's episode. The doctor is in, Chris. Chris Cummins, welcome to the Lake Doctor podcast.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, Susie.

Speaker 1:

Chris, you're a second-generation Winona Lake resident.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

And you have an interesting volunteer role. Tell us about yourself and the Winona Lake Preservation Association.

Speaker 3:

Well, I've always loved the lakes. My father was in the boat business, my brother and I joined him and we grew up on Spring Hill, not far from here, and we were close to the lake I mean a block away. But we grew up. We're swimmers too competitively. So I just love the lake, love fishing, all the good things you do when you're a kid. And then about the time I was going into junior high we moved over to Winona Lake and dad built a house and so I lived there through the 70s and just love the lake, love the fun.

Speaker 3:

But you know it's interesting when you get older how much you your view of it changes as you mature. But you know always caring about what happens to the lake and you know trying to better it and leave it better than what I found it, because the foundries were so bad back in the day Gatke and them it was horrible. There was a marina there and people would always say stay away from that side of the lake just because they knew pollution was coming in. So you know there's been major changes and it's all been positive from what it used to be 50 years ago.

Speaker 1:

So, speaking about pollution coming in, in recent history there's been an opportunity for the Winona Lake Preservation Association and the Lilly Center to work together on a chemical spill.

Speaker 3:

Tell us a bit about that the chemical spill and the pipe that it was coming out of that dumped into the lake under the condos. I have several friends that live there and one of our board members, joy Losey, lived right nearby and when it happened it was always open there because of the warm water that would come through. But when it started bubbling and changing colors and all these bad things, I get the call and I go over and look at it and then we notify Nate and the city and all of a sudden we're on it, uh, to figure out what's coming in, and Nate did a great job of figuring out what it was, what the chemical, uh, the effect on the lake, uh, the aquatic life, everything, uh, waterfowl and, uh, you know, so that that was. I mean, that's right in our wheelhouse. Uh, preserving the lake is certainly not letting pollution in, and manmade at that.

Speaker 3:

So we've made many changes which I'm sure Nate will touch on, but it's, you know, those are the types of things I get calls on besides just weeds or lake level. But you know, that's something that you know again, with what happened there in the 60s and 70s and getting it started to clean up in the 90s and 2000s, or at least cutting it off so that it was, you know, no longer polluting. It's just great now to be proactive, and that's kind of the way I see it. I want to be as proactive as I can.

Speaker 1:

So the lake is a precious resource, but so is the Little Lake Center. You are a precious resource for our community. When things like this happen, what did you do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so first off we had to respond to it and find out exactly what was going into the lake, and so I can remember getting that call and working with the mayor of Warsaw and then Chris as a president of WLPA and driving right past the police barricade and getting to the. They had a mobile command center set up right there by the chemical company which is where these chemicals were coming from, and we quickly were able to get a list there with what chemicals were in inventory at the place of the fire and where these things were getting washed then into the storm sewer which was coming out of the pipe that Chris was just mentioning. And so we knew different chemical properties of these different chemicals. Some were carcinogenic and so we knew that would be a potential human health concern. Others could rapidly lower oxygen levels in the lake, so that could be a concern for some of the wildlife in the lake and also volumes of those different chemicals, and so we quickly characterized that so we knew what we were dealing with. Then we started taking samples in the lake itself and we had a lot of other government agencies there the DNR, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, even the Homeland Security coming in and they were looking at all of our data as well that we were collecting right on site. There and great collaboration, we quickly determined, given the volumes going in and the size of the lake, that we likely didn't have concentrations in the lake that would adversely affect human users of the lake or some of the wildlife that were in the lake. And then we continued to monitor over time the lake to see if there was any adverse effects, and we didn't measure any.

Speaker 2:

So then became the work of, as Chris was just saying, being proactive. Then came the work of prevention. Okay, this was a horrible thing. We don't want to see this happen again. How can we make sure it doesn't happen again?

Speaker 2:

So what we did and this is part of the Lilly Center's DNA as part of our collaboration effort is we pulled together in our conference room folks from Winona Lake Preservation Association, folks from the city of Warsaw, folks from the town of Winona Lake and also then representatives from this chemical company that is where these chemicals originated from and the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams.

Speaker 2:

We hosted the meeting and we were able to go around and talk about concerns from the city or town's perspective, from the lake association's perspective, some scientific understanding from our perspective and the chemical company was able to hear those concerns.

Speaker 2:

And then we started talking about voluntary steps they could take to minimize that risk in the future, and it was a series of meetings. We kept the public notified along the way, with press releases and public meetings letting people know what was going on. And so those voluntary actions, things like reducing some of the amount of those chemicals that they would have in their facility at any one time, doing more what we call just-in-time manufacturing, where they would pull it into their facility just at the time they were mixing up a new batch of whatever they were making, Also a dike around a large portion of their property so if there was a fire or a spill of some sort it would be more contained right on site there. And even since then, working with the city of Warsaw stormwater utility and there's now some filtration in some of those stormwater drains that come off of that hillside towards the lake, and so lots of good things happened from an initially very bad thing that happened.

Speaker 1:

So that chemical spill was not. Chemical spill was a result of a fire and water runoff trying to put out the fire.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So it wasn't real, like I don't need to defend the chemical company, but they were not negligent, it was an accident.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there certainly was steps they could have done to minimize that ahead of time. But once those things were identified after the fact they were excited to make those changes.

Speaker 1:

So Chris made a comment like in the 20 plus years that you've lived on the lake, you've learned a lot about how to do things better, and that's one of the gifts you're bringing to our community learning how to do things better. And that's one of the gifts you're bringing to our community learning how to do things better. And we're glad that the chemical company was responsive to you and has learned how to do things in a better manner. So, chris, what are other things that you, as a lake association, help your members do and care for the lake?

Speaker 3:

You know, it seemed that I started 20 years ago as president. It was a one-year term.

Speaker 1:

Life sentence.

Speaker 3:

And no, but I've just seen the growth in, you know, participation of people, their willingness to give you know, they want to know what's going into the lake too. And we had never done anything like that before. It really had been again just try and control the weeds. But now I, you know, I'm in charge of the dam when to raise and lower. And by the way, when uh, the spill happened, I remember uh Joe called me Mayor Joe and said, uh, would you go close the dam Because it was open and you know all the water's coming out. So we went over and dammed it in the cause it was February.

Speaker 2:

Was it January? Yeah, it was in February. And so we yeah, we didn't quite know at that time how much volume of these chemicals were going into the lake and if it would potentially adversely affect downstream water bodies, going into Eagle Creek and then the Tippie River and then some more lakes down down. And so the thought was maybe we need to contain this within Winona Lake.

Speaker 3:

And that brought to your question. That brought more attention and concern from the residents and they wanted to know. You know what was that? Is it going to kill off the turtles, the fish you know? Can we swim? I mean?

Speaker 3:

you know, people go into dark places when stuff like that happens, and thank God it was not anything that was major, but again it shined a light on a deficiency that we needed to address. So that was one of the things. You know, water quality has become huge. That'd be one of my top three. The weeds are still a large portion of our budget containment. You know I've grown to in that. I'm conservative, you know, politically, but I'm a conservationist and you know there's tree huggers and there's all this different stuff. But I thought I love the lake and I want to conserve it and make it better and I think anybody of any party or any ilk would agree with that and that's you know basically what's gotten us more participation from people who want to serve and who want to help.

Speaker 3:

So controlling the lake levels is a big thing because we'll have storms in the spring. Usually We've had drought where we've had to try and plug the dam. There's always a portion of the dam that's open so that water flows and the creek doesn't dry up and affect the ecosystem downstream, but the dam has always been a big thing. We got a new dam. By the way, we had one. Let's see. I was in college in 82, I think they built the dam and then that was there for 40 years and then they rebuilt the dam. That and then that was there for 40 years and then they rebuilt the dam and so the lake level. Interestingly enough, my dad bought the lot on the point on North Bay Drive in like 1970.

Speaker 3:

We didn't move in until 74, but he put a seawall in and built up a bunch of dirt, took the house down that was there it was a cottage put a pier up and that's where we used to go over before we actually moved there. Well, the interesting thing was the lake level then was 18 inches lower than what it is now. So, as the years went by, up to 82, they raised it and I'll never forget my brother and I helping my dad. We had to adjust the pier and put new cross, you know, to raise it. And the pier, I mean then our seawall was, you know, instead of it being down X amount, all of a sudden it's like right there, right, caused a lot of erosion behind. I can remember trying to mow around the holes and then we'd fill them and then have to refill them in two years and, you know, just from all of that erosion, from the wave action. So, you know, and then I ended up having to cap it because it cracked in 2000 and we added, uh, you know, 15 inch. You know we went way up because we were concerned and the lake level has now always been higher, but we adjusted that 18 inches. Uh, when we open it, it goes back down to, uh, the old level, which was, you know, night, I don't even know when it probably before me, uh, but it drops 18 inches. And then in the spring, like I said, when we have, uh, rainstorms that are relentless, um, I can have it wide open and it's still flooding because the volume coming in is greater than what we can allow out. So I get phone calls and I always say I'm not god, or when it's dry, they're, can you make it rain? I can pray. But yeah, those are the things.

Speaker 3:

And another one is with the advent of wake boats, wake surfing specifically, and I'm in the boat business, I understand it and everybody loves it, but sometimes people get way too close to the shoreline and the waves are massive. They were never that way before. So it's one of the reasons that we have, uh, you know, initiated, with the help of the watershed foundation, the healthy shores initiative, to get rocks, uh, in front of your seawall, to break them and also to keep the seawall in place my old seawall before I put in the new one. They slowly fall in towards the water as it pulls out underneath. You think you go down five feet. Well, that doesn't matter, the wave still pulls and pulls and next thing, you know, your seawall's starting to crack and fall in. So this is a another solution to that, in addition to knocking down those big waves, uh that are rocking people's boats, their pier, their property. Um, that's been a major concern, uh, for people. They want to try, and you know, not take that away from people, but you know in responsibility yeah responsibly.

Speaker 3:

Go out to the middle lake and do it. Don't, don't come within. You know 100 feet of someone's property.

Speaker 1:

You explained what glacial stone does in front of the um pier.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. So the physics of that would be so you've got this, um, concrete seawall that goes down to the sediment of the lake, right, and you've got a big wave coming in and what happens is, as that wave, energy bounces off that concrete seawall, it's going to bounce back the other direction as well as allow some down. Some of it will splash up over, so some energy goes up over and as those waves continue to bounce back and forth, it creates this sort of bathtub effect where the wave amplitude keeps getting bigger and things are bouncing and it's all this choppiness all around the lake. But also what it's doing is, as it goes down and it scours down near what we call the toe of that seawall, it's going to pull dirt away from it, and so that's going to allow then some of this dirt behind to start to erode up under the seawall. The seawall is going to start to turn in, as you were just describing that erosion, and no longer is the shoreline protected anymore, and now we've got less protection, we've got bigger waves and so we've got a problem right.

Speaker 2:

So the idea of the glacial stone these are natural, typically limestone-based stones that are taken from Indiana here, and they're put in front of the seawall. So now, when you have a wave coming against that seawall, it's going to bounce amongst those stones and rather than it bouncing back again and starting that sort of down scour, instead the energy is going to be dispersed amongst those smaller glacial stones maybe six-inch stones and so they'll hold things in place. Keep that erosion from happening underneath the seawall. Keep the seawall in place and also help that downscour can also bring sediment up into the water, which brings nutrients in the water, which causes more weeds and algae to grow, and so it can have a lot of benefits with a fairly simple fix.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely yeah, and we've managed to do. I mean, our ultimate goal would be to have the entire lake have glacial stone so that we don't have, you know, because it works. I mean it is amazing if you see a seawall Down on Yarnell Point. My friend had one, Chris Rankin, who's also a board member, and next door to him. It was kind of a point and they did not have it and you'd see the big waves come in and just dissipate and break apart, and then the other one, it would come up and shoot up in the air and you're just like, wow, that's how much it does to help. And so if we can get that around the lake and and have uh, you know, lower, chop lower waves.

Speaker 3:

I think it's a huge positive and I and so we've continued to do that. We've done it for I don't know how many people we've done now, but you know 20 homes.

Speaker 2:

It's big and the lake association has matched those those funds. So when somebody wants to come in there's some grant money available. But also the lake association will kick in some too. Yeah, we kick in a thousand dollars.

Speaker 3:

So if it's a, you know, three thousand dollar bill, we're paying a thousand of it. But you know, it's an incentive and a good one, and people want to do it because it's again going to wash away their property and all the things that they want to keep and preserve. So, yeah, it's been a good thing and we're going to continue to do it until we don't have to do it anymore, because it's all. You know, all the lake is done.

Speaker 1:

So, besides glacial stone in the seawall, are there other steps that your property owners can take to help keep the lake healthy?

Speaker 3:

Yes, we talk a lot about fertilizer and phosphorus and the fact that we have really tried to educate uh property, lake property, you know owners to not do that to use. You know best practices of of low phosphate and you know they've adhered a lot to that because we say, hey, hey, all you're doing is artificially fertilizing.

Speaker 1:

That's right yeah.

Speaker 2:

Not your grass.

Speaker 3:

I mean your grass too, but gosh the weeds. And then they complain about the weeds.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, the soils in our area typically have enough phosphorus in them to support grass and other plants and stuff, so we don't have to add more phosphorus. That extra phosphorus, like you said, is typically going to run right off and just make weeds grow, and then that's another cost to the lake association. That's right.

Speaker 3:

Also with leaves or lawn clippings, making sure they understand, because we don't see it much anymore, but we saw it even a few years ago. Because we don't see it much anymore, but we saw it even a few years ago and people called me and said you know this guy, this dip is over there throwing his leaves into the lake.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I'm thinking like 50 years ago, my in-laws lived on the Barbie chain, and that was the thing. You just break the leaves into the lake. But it's like you said you learn that that is not a good practice, so you do things differently.

Speaker 3:

That's right. That's right. So everybody again catches those and lets the city take them away, which is great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and some might think those grass clippings or those leaves, hey, those are natural things, so why not allow them to go into the lake, either purposefully or passively, by not pulling them off the lawn? The problem with it is, even though those things are natural, as they go into the lake they start to decompose and they give off nutrients, and those nutrients are going to start to grow more weeds, also known as aquatic macrophytes, and we've already got plenty of those. Right, we have an unnatural abundance of those or they're going to start to grow algae, also known as phytoplankton, and that could be toxic. They can have adverse effects for the lake, and so we have too much of those as well, and so we want to keep those things out of the lake, so we don't add more weeds and algae.

Speaker 1:

So I imagine a lake association probably has. It's an organization. How do you, how is that organization supported, and what do you do with the funds that you collect through dues?

Speaker 3:

So we are supported solely through our members, except for the city of Warsaw does give us a donation each year. We've been doing that for probably the last five, six, seven years, but they know what we're using it for. But we also, when I send my newsletter out, when I send my newsletter out, we'll talk about, you know, wlpa financial contributions, just so they know that we're doing more than just weeds or the shoreline. We do the 4th of July fireworks. We donate to that. The lakes in the classroom through Nate, which is great at the middle schools, the sampling of the streams, also through Nate.

Speaker 3:

These are things that you know. When the board voted on them, it's a no-brainer I said this is, this is what we do, this is right in our wheelhouse. So the healthy shorelines again, it's a thousand dollars for each one, so you get several of those. You've got several thousand dollars in that and we support the watershed foundation and those are just a few of the things. Over the years we've we've helped with the shoreline restoration, like over at the fairgrounds. It was eroding horribly and we donated to that and helped to get that, you know, pushed through and it's been a complete success because it's now overgrown. They didn't do. They did some glacial stone, but they also did plants that can thrive in that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah native plantings along there. Those plants have deep root systems, really close and packed together, and so now, rather than having exposed dirt along that shoreline, instead it's armored with plants to help hold the soil back, and it looks nicer too. It's more natural looking, rather than sort of a bare exposed shelf of dirt that's just kind of caving in so, yeah, the water quality, uh, the other, the dredging was big.

Speaker 3:

Um, the city helped us on that, uh, the state, um, we had to raise funds for that. And those three northern uh channels that were man-made back in the 50s, I think uh had never been, I thought they'd been dredged. They'd never been dredged. Wow, um, all they'd done is at the mouth of a couple of them and where it had gotten, you know, clogged, they went in and took out, just at the mouth where you go into these channels. Um, so that was huge, it took a lot of money, a lot of time.

Speaker 3:

Channels so that was huge, it took a lot of money, a lot of time and they all got dredged down a few feet and it was really in the center so that when you're boating and you know you're not and taking out stuff that was in there. But it was a huge help, I think, to to the people that live along there and and all boat boaters, because you know people would call me saying I can't really get my boat down the public ramp, going by the old high school, the middle school now. But they said, you know, I'm afraid to. Well, now I tell them, you know, it's no problem. I mean, it was literally cleaned out, sucked out and it's, you know, a nice smooth. Now I don't know how many years it'll take If it fills back in. I probably won't be around, but at any rate that was something else we did.

Speaker 2:

That was a big plus for the residents and people and those projects wouldn't happen without the Lake Association. It's not something that individual residents can come and try to get. It's the Lake and River Enhancement Program with the DNR which is paid for through people registering their boats in the state of Indiana and they make then grants to lake associations to do these sort of dredging projects, usually with some sort of cost share, where the lake raises some money and then the DNR comes in with some matching funds but the Lake Association is needed to organize it and submit the application in order to get that funding and hire the contractor to get the dredging done. So that's another service that the Lake Association provides that wouldn't otherwise be possible for lake residents.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of services, how does the Lilly Center work with lake associations?

Speaker 2:

Lilly Center work with lake associations. Yeah, so one of the ways that we work together is through education and being part of annual meetings for lake associations and presenting on some of our research, some of the education that we're doing in the local schools on behalf of those lake associations, to raise up the next generation of what we call water literate citizens who are going to make good choices with our local lakes. We'll help with education and newsletters. A lot of the lake associations, as you were just talking about, have newsletters and so we can supply different educational columns for those newsletters so people can learn about boating and glacial stone and those sorts of things around their lake.

Speaker 2:

We do a lot of sampling of the lake itself as well as looking at the inflowing streams coming in. So Winona Lake, for example, has three inflowing streams Kiefer Evans, cherry and Peterson are the streams that come in in one outflowing stream by the dam that you already mentioned, which is called Eagle Creek, and we have stream sensors that are constantly measuring everything coming in and going out of Winona Lake, the sensors looking at the water and then we come alongside with some sampling with our college student interns to see how much nutrients are coming in and out, so we can have a budget of the lake, knowing what's in, what's out and how do we need to change that budget in the future, and so also, as I said, research of the lake itself and those things then can start to change people's perception, people's actions, with awareness and with better information, and then we can have better practices for taking care of that lake than in the future and that information is available on the Lilly Center website.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so all of our research data is always available on our website, real time in fact, for the stream sensors that I just mentioned and we do some algae toxin testing in the summertime for Winona as well as other lakes there's a notification system people can sign up for and so they're getting regular updates on what's going on with algae in the lakes. We come out with a big annual report every year, in the fall called Beneath the Surface, which has got all the data for Winona and the other lakes and help people and empower people to make better decisions then about the lakes going forward as they manage and care for them and nobody had ever done that before, and that's that's the thing.

Speaker 3:

I mean. It was just it's changed so much in the 20 years I've been president and again, a lot of that is because of you and and the watershed foundation, the lily, you and working together to make it better. I mean, it wasn't that I don't think anybody like didn't care. They just probably didn't know how to go about you know, getting these things done and in place that we need to preserve the lake and improve quality of the water.

Speaker 2:

Chris mentioned a few minutes ago aquariums at middle schools and so, if I can touch on that as well, so the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams has a lot of different educational programs that we do with K-12 schools.

Speaker 2:

This past year had over 12,000 student connections, and some of those are middle schoolers, through the program that WLPA sponsors, which is having aquariums in classrooms, sometimes in libraries, sometimes in the classrooms themselves, and so those aquariums kind of like what we have here, a miniature version of it behind us, those classrooms, those aquariums have native fish, so local fish that we'd see in Winona Lake or one of our other lakes, and we're now starting to put live plants in a lot of those aquariums as well, local native live plants, and so from students' desks in the classroom they can learn about those local native fish.

Speaker 2:

They learn about how these aquariums are sort of miniature models of the bigger lakes around our community and learn about the importance of caring for these lakes as homes for fish, not only for the recreation that we as humans enjoy, but they're also homes for fish and crayfish and insects and frogs and turtles, and so it's really a fun program and WLPA has been a sponsor for many years of that program and so you think about how many thousands of students have interacted with those aquariums over time and it's really raising that next generation of water Water literate, Water literate citizens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah To care. Yeah to care Because we know better now.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly, and also you guys do the Secchi dish too, which I used to do for years and send it down to IU, to the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and that's where you measure the clarity of the water. The disc is black and white and you drop it. You've got a tape measure, literally, and you drop it down until you can't see it anymore and record that, and Nate has all the stats now going back. You know before me, but it's a good way of looking at the. You know, are we on the right track? Is it getting better?

Speaker 1:

Exactly Are we on the right track?

Speaker 2:

Is it getting better? In some measurements yes, in some measurements no, and so it's really dependent. One measurement we can look at is how far down does oxygen go, for example for fish habitat? And we know back in 1912, there was about 50 feet of fish habitat and now, in more recent years it's around 15 feet. So from 50 down to 15. And so that's a bad trend there.

Speaker 2:

Other trends we could look at water clarity, like with the Secchi disk that Chris was just talking about. Back, I think our first Secchi disk measurement that we have data for for Winona Lake is from 1901. Isn't that interesting. And it was about twice as clear as it is today. But in recent years we have seen some increased water clarity in Winona Lake. Now it's too soon to say if that's a trend or not. Usually you'll need 20 or 30 years worth of data to be able to distinguish a trend. But at least it's some positive indication that we might be moving in a better direction with clarity.

Speaker 2:

Things like algae toxins and E coli in the lake itself those levels have been pretty low and so they haven't been a big concern for the lake. Things like toxic substances Chris mentioned earlier some past manufacturing, maybe 50 to 75 years ago. Those things certainly are decreasing in the amount as those things get buried further and further under the sediment as new layers of sediment form at the bottom of the lake each year. Things like fish consumption advisories have changed for the better in recent years because some of those toxic substances are starting to get buried further down under the sediment at the bottom of the lake.

Speaker 1:

So we know that that oxygen level is deep, like there's an area where there is no oxygen and so plants and fish don't live in those areas. How can we get more oxygen into the lake, like, I imagine, chris getting a little bubbler and sticking?

Speaker 3:

his way down there and bubbling oxygen in, we get a giant waterfall out in the middle of the lake. I mean a spring.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's going to be more. We've had people wonder about those sorts of things, and it would be really really expensive to actively add oxygen into those bottom water layers of the lake where there's low oxygen currently. It's more cost effective to reduce the thing that's making the oxygen go away in the first place, and so we know that excess nutrients, like we've talked about, are making more weeds and algae grow, and when those weeds and algae die and sink to the bottom, the bacteria that are decomposing the weeds and algae use up the oxygen. So if we want to have more oxygen in that bottom water, we need to reduce the amount of nutrients that get into the lake so that we have less weeds and algae growing, which also will save WLPA money on weed treatment every year and make the lake better for recreation and fishing and a lot of other things, and then that will slowly increase the oxygen level in the bottom of the lake and allow fish to move further down into those cold water layers and have a much healthier lake going forward in the future.

Speaker 1:

So, through the three things that property owners around Winona Lake need to be thinking about If they don't have a glacial stone, seawall that reduce phosphate and.

Speaker 2:

We talked about native plants along the shoreline which are sort of a filter, as water is moving from land towards the water and anything that the water is taking with it, like sediments or nutrients, those native plants can infiltrate that. We also talked about grass clippings and leaves, not wanting those to get into the lake. Those would be other nutrient sources that we can minimize.

Speaker 3:

And I think that we talked about the wave action. We talked about the wave action but educating people as to not get so close to shore. And by that I mean also that on the north side of the lake, where I live, it's quite shallow. The deepest part, of course, is over on the country club side, just from where the glaciers made the lake. But when boats go by and they don't know any better, and they're at a 45-degree angle and their propeller is digging into the bottom and it lifts all of the sediment and it keeps, and then more boats go by and the water clarity goes down, the sediments are suspended. They can again, again, encourage more weed growth that that's a problem that you know.

Speaker 3:

Another thing that I would say we want to, also because of the wakeboard boats and, and those are things that I think, educating people, uh, because of the destruction that it does to the shoreline and, again, the sediment and stuff and water clarity, I think that's something else that we need to continue to chris, thank you you're very welcome for your leadership at the winona lake I'm happy to do it preservation association and taking care of the lake, and I and I so love how you have evolved in that role and when you know better, you're doing better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3:

I said in the 70s, we didn't care, we were just kids having fun on the lake. But then you get older and you're like, wow, we gotta, we gotta make this thing last forever and improve it and and it's, it's fun, I enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

It's fun, I enjoy it. I'm Dr Nate Bosch, the director of the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. Our word of the day today is eutrophication. Hard to say, even harder to spell, but it's a pretty simple concept. Let's use an analogy of our own human body to help us understand this. So just like our bodies age over time due to what we feed it, how we treat it and then just time passing, so too our lakes age over time as well. They don't get wrinkles or gray hair, but there are certain signs that we can tell a lake is getting older.

Speaker 2:

The general progression of a lake would be starting as a legotrophic you could think of that as sort of childhood and then mesotrophic, maybe adolescence, and then eutrophic, maybe adulthood, to pull our human analogy a little bit further. So how's the lake going to change throughout those particular times? Well, our lakes here in northern Indiana are what are called glacial lakes, so they're formed by glaciers, and so right after they're formed they're going to be considered oligotrophic. Some of the characteristics we'd see in an oligotrophic lake would be super clear water, not a whole lot of vegetation. Deep bottom, not a lot of muck or sediment that started to accumulate on the bottom of the lake, few fish species, not all that diverse in its aquatic community, and you're going to notice different types of plants around the shoreline and even in the lake as well. We might have plants such as bladderwort in the water. Bladderwort's actually really cool. It's a carnivorous plant, just like venus flytrap or a pitcher plant. They have these tiny little deflated sacs and when a zooplankton goes up near it and triggers a couple hairs at one time, it opens up pulls in the zooplankton and then the bladder starts to digest the zooplankton. But that's kind of a little bit of a rabbit trail.

Speaker 2:

When we move into the second phase of lakes as they age, we move into the mesotrophic lake category. Mesotrophic is probably what 80% or more of our lakes in Kosciuszko County, indiana, and probably across the entire Midwestern United States they would be in this category. We're starting to get a little bit more nutrients in the water and so our water is starting to get a little bit greener in color, maybe a little bit browner, depending on what types of algae are in the water at that time. Those nutrients are feeding the algae, which makes the water look a little cloudier. We're also going to get more plant material starting to grow. Those bladderworts might be replaced with some of the things I have around me here in this lake, like pondweed or lilies.

Speaker 2:

The fish are going to change. We're going to have more diversity in the fish community. With more nutrients. It's going to ramp up that food chain, and so we're going to have different types of fish that we're going to see in the lake. Also, the vegetation along the shoreline might change as well.

Speaker 2:

The lake's actually going to get shallower as we go from oligotrophic to mesotrophic. We're going to start to get a little bit more of that sediment, that muck, starting to build on the bottom of the lake, and so it's gonna make the lake a little bit shallower than over time as well. And then we move to our final lake stage, which is eutrophic, which is where we get the word eutrophication. That's the process that we're moving in, and a eutrophic lake's gonna be even shallower. Really, that lake's on its way to becoming a wetland and then even a wet prairie and then a dry prairie as it continues to fill in over time, and so we've got lots of muck sediment build up on the bottom of the lake. It's fairly shallow Now. We've got plants moving in and almost choking out the water column. There's so many plants, the water color typically is going to be an even even less clarity, with more of those greens and browns from all of the algal abundance, because we've got lots of nutrients in that lake as it moves into the later stages of its life. We've got plants. We're no longer going to see some of those original plants like the bladder warts. We're only going to see some of these other plants, like lilies, which are an indicator of moving into that lake later, what we call trophic status, that eutrophic type lake.

Speaker 2:

So what are some examples of lakes that are in those different categories? Well, here in kosciuszko county in northern indiana we're standing in Pike Lake right now, which is an example of a eutrophic lake, and so we've got a high level of productivity here, lots of nutrients, we've got lots of plants, high fish productivity and we're starting to see the lake fill in then with that muck. Example of mesotrophic lake, those would be lakes like Lake Wawasee in our county, but the largest natural lake in Indiana Also, big Chapman, would be an example in that mesotrophic. Actually most of our lakes in Kosciuszko County would be in the mesotrophic category and then a legotrophic, that original sort of childhood, if you will category, that would be more like Wahbee up in the northern part of Kosciuszko County or even Shock Lake, kind of in the more middle part of our county. And so how long does this take?

Speaker 2:

Some of you might be living on a lake thinking, oh man, is my lake going to be filled in next year and become a wetland? It takes a long time, naturally, for this progression to happen. But we as people around the lakes and in the watersheds even further from the lakes, can actually speed up that process. It's called cultural eutrophication. So there's the natural process of eutrophication, but we can speed it up. And what are some things that we can do to speed it up?

Speaker 2:

Well, too much nutrients getting in the lake is really the cause. And so where are those nutrients coming from? Fertilizers, excess fertilizers. When we put too much fertilizer in a golf course or a lawn around our homes or an agricultural field, that excess nutrient is gonna come into the lake and speed up this eutrophication process. Also, we can have erosion Erosion, maybe from the lake itself, the shorelines of the lake itself, maybe from the bottom of the lake with certain boating activities. It could be from construction sites around a watershed, agricultural fields, stream bank erosion along our streams that lead into our lakes. Those are gonna be things that can bring additional nutrients into the lake as well.

Speaker 2:

We can actually reverse eutrophication. So there's such a thing as a legotrophication, which is moving it backwards in time. Our closest example to that here in the Midwestern United States would be Lake Michigan. I can remember as a kid going in Lake Michigan and standing in water that's maybe waist or knee deep and not being able to see my toes under the water. Now, as an adult, even though I'm taller, I can actually see my toes in the water in Lake Michigan. So Lake Michigan has gone backwards in that aging process and that's a goal that we have for our lots of our inland lakes here through Indiana and throughout the Midwest. That's what we're working towards at the Lilly Center, for example. All right, so eutrophication that natural progression that can sometimes be sped up if we're not careful with how we take care of our local lakes as we go from a legotrophic to mesotrophic, to eutrophic.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. Please like, subscribe and share, and make sure to join us next time. It's bound to be fun.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 1:

If you have a comment or a question that we can discuss in future episodes, leave a comment or send an email to lakes at graceedu. We'll see you next time. The Doctor is In.