Madison & Dane County Lakes: A Referendum That Would Pass

In today's The Capital Times Rob Zaleski has a fascinating column, $12.4M cleans city's lakes (except they're not ours)
 

It seems that the Twin Cities committed to cleaning their lakes and have met with keen results. As Zaleski notes, their problem is not as complicated as ours since they do not have to contend with agricultural run-off, but there is no reason we should continue to accept defeat.

Lets assume that cleaning the four main lakes (Monona, Mendota, Waubesa, and Kegonsa) and Wingra cost $30 million over ten years. Certainly, the steps to control the agricultural run off will be expensive.

My guess is that Dane County voters would adopt a referendum to spend that kind of money if they could get results half as good as they obtained in Minnesota:

The most dramatic example is 421-acre Lake Calhoun, the largest of the lakes and a favorite of the residents of the trendy Uptown neighborhood, where the clarity level is almost 20 feet, or as good as it was in the settlement days of the late 1800s, according to Sara Aplikowski, water resources coordinator for the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. In comparison, the 2006 clarity levels for Madison lakes were 9 feet for Lake Mendota, 6 feet for Lake Monona and 2 feet for Lake Wingra.

Of course, I begged the question: what would the $30 million get us?

Why don't we appoint a task force to find out. Now there is a task force and a referendum worth some excitement.

Comments

[Dan Sebald]

To see all the trash floating amongst the putrid algae blooms this past summer near the Terrace swimming area of the University of Wisconsin, home of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, makes one want to cry.

From what I've seen, there are several who really take the issue to heart and are in positions to run with the idea of really cleaning up the Yahara Lakes in terms of pollution, eutrophication and invasives (county and DNR). Unfortunately, the political will isn't there to provide the financial backing and authority. The progressives on the C.C. did do a little about five years ago, but that's not enough.

It's strange, really, how people place more importance on possessive things than on something like Lake Mendota (known as Wonkshekhomikla to those who walk the land before us), which has been around thousands of years.

http://www.danewaters.com/default.aspx

[Emily]

I am 100% in favor of serious and sustained efforts to clean up the lakes here, and will do whatever I can to help make that happen. Do we start a petition? Call our reps? I'm honestly curious about what actions might be most effective in getting this done.

One thing about the Zaleski article concerns me, though: the use of aluminum sulfate to treat lakes. In theory, it sounds good: bind up all that phosphorous and other solids and get 'em out of the way. But what are the long-term environmental effects of pouring all that aluminum into the water?

So far, I've found this:

"However, the use of aluminum sulfate as an additive has inherent problems when employed in lake water having low alkalinity and low pH, as aluminum sulfate tends to further depress the pH of the entire lake. For example, one mg/liter of aluminum sulfate consumes about 0.5 mg/liter of alkalinity from lake water, thereby depressing the pH of the lake. Lake pH is of particular importance because at a pH of 6.0 or less, free aluminum becomes soluble and enters the lake water. Toxicity tests have indicated that aluminum concentrations in water which are greater than about 50 µg/liter are detrimental to aquatic life." (http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5039427-description.html)

And then: "However, in eutrophic lakes algal blooms often raise the pH to 9 or above, and a significant fraction of the ammonia is thus present as volatile NH3. The pH of the Lake Mendota surface water is generally 8.9 to 9.0 during the summer. However, ammonia is depleted to trace concentrations (0.01 to 0.05 mg. of N per liter) by algal assimilation in early spring and remains low in concentration until late fall. During periods when the surface water ammonia content is high (0.3 to 0.4 mg. of N per liter) the pH is near 8.0, and during much of the period of high ammonia values, the lake is ice covered." (http://www.members.aol.com/annejlee/DenitrifMendotaBrezonik.pdf)

Which would indicate that at this time, with the lake pH level being as high as it is, likely due to all that algae, adding the aluminum sulphate would be relatively safe. But what about if/when we reach the goal of cleaner lakes, resulting in fewer algae blooms and, presumably, lower pH levels? Would the aluminum then be released into the water?

I would hope that any task force created to study and make recommendations for the cleaning up of the lakes would seriously address this issue before using the technique. I wonder what the Minnesota planner's knew about the process?

I realize this makes me geeky and picky, but it seems important to know.