I took this year’s first water samples Thursday, May 17 at around 11 am. The preliminary results came this afternoon and the Fecal Coliform levels are very low,  well within acceptable limits.

#1 Dock:                         14 cfu
#2 Cedar Fork Inlet:       18 cfu
#3 Booker Creek Inlet    20 cfu

Caution level is individual reading above 400 cfu, or average above 200 cfu.

The rain gauge was not out. We had a mild rain the night before but not enough to postpone the test.  Rainfall may elevate the results artificially by flushing animal waste on the ground into the tributaries.  

Lake water temp:
21 C (Dock)
21.5 C (Cedar Fork Creek forebay)
21 C (Booker Creek inlet arm)

The lake water temperature is about the same as it was last year at this time, and the subjective quality and clarity is also similar.  In 2006, we had an early warm spell, so we took an early set of samples in April.  This year’s warm spells were shorter in duration so we did not conduct the early sampling. 

Last year’s early sampling gave us the year’s lowest readings, almost undetectable fecal levels.   The highest results from last year were in June, during a rainy period.  The levels were still OK, but two orders of magnitude greater than the lowest levels.  This confirmed the warning about inaccurate sampling after a rainfall.  Be cautious about going in the lake after a moderately hard rain.   Very heavy rainfall flushes everything through quickly.  In that case the contamination  is diluted and carried downstream.  One of our lower sets of readings came two days after Hurricane Fran.   

I fielded the usual questions about geese.  They are warm-blooded and do contribute to the coliform bacteria in our water.  It seems like our system can process their waste, bacteriologically speaking, as long as they are are subsisting on forage from natural sources, only.  The aesthetics of goose waste on the lawn and docks is another matter, altogether.  To control that, the strings with mylar tape seemed to work as well as any strategy we have tried.

More of our lakefront homes are now getting professional lawn and landscape care.  Please make sure your landscapers are knowledgeable about lake-margin fertilizer formulations and irrigation guidelines.  The lake is nutrient-sensitive and we always experience an algae bloom and die-off in June, and another one in August.  Managing what we dump into the water now can make this inevitable cycle less disruptive.

Our watershed is four square miles, mostly to the North and Northwest of our neighborhood.  The more those areas get developed, the more “impervious” the ground becomes.  That means we are getting more groundwater from farther away, and impervious surfaces do not filter the natural or manmade contamination.  Lake Ellen, Cedar Falls Park, Wolf Branch, and the Airport areas are in our watershed.  That includes part of the planned Chapel Hill North development.  Our continued good water quality depends on responsible management of erosion in this area.

Chuck Henage