Lake Stewards Fight To Preserve The Lake Lifestyle
By Jeff Elliott

Entrusted HOA and lake board members seek the best path forward to preserve the lake lifestyle in the face of algal blooms, health risks, lake closures, unpleasant odors, and falling property values.
For generations, Americans have embraced the lake lifestyle, a way of life centered around the beauty, recreation, and tranquility of our nation's lakes. It serves as a gathering place for families, where memories are created, and daily stresses dissipate. Whether fishing, diving off the dock, or enjoying the scenic views, life by the lake offers a uniquely special experience.
Regrettably, this cherished lifestyle faces significant risk from eutrophication, a process where excess nutrients from fertilizers, septic systems, and stormwater runoff inundate lakes. This triggers a series of issues including harmful algal blooms, health risks, lake closures, unpleasant odors, unsightly scum, and falling property values as the lake’s desirability diminishes.
When this situation arises, members of the homeowners association (HOA), lake board, or committee hold the immense responsibility of making critical decisions to safeguard the community’s lake, efficiently allocate resources, and preserve the lake lifestyle for current and future generations. Despite significant financial investments over many years, there has been little improvement in the condition of U.S. lakes. In fact, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the health of our lakes has deteriorated consistently over the past two decades
In many cases, these decision-makers call on lake consultants or management companies to evaluate the situation and recommend solutions. The initial step typically involves identifying invasive weed species and conducting diagnostic tests to measure a variety of symptoms such as nutrient levels in various chemical forms, water clarity, and chemical parameters such as pH and conductivity. Frequently, the application of chemicals like biocides to kill off algae and weeds is advised.
And this is where the process breaks down. In most cases, the short-term “fixes” proposed do not address the root causes of lake deterioration and instead only worsen the lake’s condition over time. These test protocols mainly assess factors that are second order symptoms and not root causes, so they do not accurately reflect the lake's true health or prognosis and provide no foundation to demonstrate quantifiable outcomes from interventions.
Compounding the issue, information and progress is often reported in annual lake management reports that demand the layperson navigate challenging and confusing data tables and statistics. This complexity can be overwhelming and lead to uncertainty about what course of action to take to remediate the lake and restore it.
“For many, determining the best path forward can be as unclear and murky as the lake itself.
You have to understand and target the root causes of your lake’s issues. If they aren't directly addressed, your investment is being wasted. A holistic, science-based strategy that tackles the underlying causes of the eutrophication of the lake is the only way to revitalize the entire ecosystem” says Dave Shackleton, president of Clean-Flo International, a U.S.-based leader in biological water management solutions for managing water quality in biological environments such as wastewater treatment, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
Evaluating Lake Health: Measure What Matters
Effective restoration of lake and water reservoir health begins with monitoring key metrics that go beyond confirming the poor condition of the lake. These metrics should assess the entire ecosystem and provide indicators that can be used to evaluate sustained improvement.
“A proper Lake Management Action Plan should begin with a thorough analysis of the factors that threaten your lake’s health, to develop a meaningful scorecard” explains Shackleton. “This scorecard should provide a clear understanding of the lake’s current status and the potential risks it faces.”
This should begin with quantifying hypoxia through regular monitoring of dissolved oxygen levels. Hypoxia can lead to fish kills and other ecological damage, that eventually lead to toxic harmful algal blooms (HABs) and lake closures, so these metrics are critical to evaluating oxygenation strategies.
Sediment accumulation is the prime driver of hypoxia and fuels nutrient recycling, which promotes the growth of invasive weeds, excessive algae, and eventually HABs. Bathymetric sonar scanning is the only way to quantify sediment reduction which is key to depleting the sediment nutrient stockpile that sustains the eutrophic state of the lake.
Finally, regularly monitoring the phytoplankton profile provides a detailed analysis of the type and abundance of algae and cyanobacteria in the lake. Measuring a parameter such as chlorophyll-α does not give the granular detail necessary for effective preventative actions to be taken. Continuous monitoring of algae populations is necessary to track changes and adjust lake management strategies as needed.
“Only by carefully analyzing the intricate interplay of factors such as hypoxia, sediment accumulation, nutrient recycling, and negative transformations to the lake’s ecosystem can we craft targeted, customized strategies that tackle the root causes of the issues holistically,” explains Shackleton.
“Targeting root causes and measuring impact and improvement ensures transparency and accountability in terms of performance management that allows lake stewards to provide evidence of the positive outcomes of their investment and efforts to their stakeholders,” he adds.
Target The Root Causes, Not The Symptoms
According to Shackleton, many lake management strategies prove inadequate because they target second order symptoms instead of the primary root cause factors that drive eutrophication in lakes.
Eutrophication is the technical term for the process that occurs when waterbodies become overly enriched with nutrients, resulting in sediment nutrient accumulation that provides a fertile rooting bed for invasive weeds in shallower areas. These nutrients are also recycled back into the water, fueling further algae growth and creating a feedback loop that perpetuates the cycle of degradation. A tipping point is eventually reached when sediment nutrient recycling is sufficient to independently sustain eutrophic conditions and facilitate a switch to cyanobacteria dominance. In short, HABs become more prevalent, persistent, and intense. By the time you have to test for toxins from a harmful algal bloom, the battle has been lost.
While the notion of quickly eradicating algae to improve the lake's appearance by using biocidal chemicals is enticing, this can lead to a detrimental feedback loop that accelerates the deterioration of the lake's ecosystem; the dead algae cells sink to the bottom to add to the sediment, the elimination of cyanobacteria can result in the release of toxins, and over time, the continued application of algaecides causes sediment nutrient stockpiles to increase, hypoxia to worsen, and nutrient recycling to be amplified.
Remediation Actions That Target What Matters
A proactive, holistic approach ensures the lake receives the care it needs for sustainable long-term health and resilience. Fortunately, there are effective, comprehensive solutions that leverage cutting-edge technologies and proven techniques.
Oxygenation is key to preventing hypoxia. The Lake Management Action Plan should include specific actions designed to restore and maintain adequate oxygen levels throughout the lake.
“Too many folks are fooled into believing that aeration is the same as oxygenation,” explains Shackleton. “It is not. The fact that you have an aeration system blowing bubbles into the water does not mean it is being oxygenated. Fortunes have been spent on aeration systems that have failed to deliver oxygenation and eliminate hypoxia.”
Rapid acting dissolved oxygen restoration (RADOR) technology, however, has been proven in numerous studies to oxygenate the whole water column, sustain high, stable, dissolved oxygen levels, reduce nutrient levels and minerals in the water column, and can keep phosphorus locked into the organic sediments.
The company designs its RADOR systems using compressors of various sizes based on the lake and application, along with self-sinking airline and diffusers that ensure that no water sports or other fun activities are impacted and maintain full oxygenation from the bottom to the surface of the water.
As nutrients accumulate in the sediment, they become part of the permanent morphology of the lake. Therefore, an important step is to implement interventions that work off those nutrient-rich sediments in the way nature intended, without physically having to dredge to remove them and then dump them safely somewhere at great cost.
Bio-dredging, which involves the use of enzymes to break down organic muck, is the most effective technique to achieve this.
“Boosted by natural enzymes, aerobic bacteria and microorganisms consume the organic muck and nutrients, while zooplankton feed on these, increasing the natural food source for fish,” says Shackleton.
Critical micronutrients supplementation can stimulate the growth of organisms that form the foundation of a productive food web. This enables balance to be restored at the level of phytoplankton and zooplankton, providing better nutrition for the food web.
“Consistent use of these techniques over time reduces nutrient availability, restores the ecological balance at the planktonic level, and helps maintain clean, healthy water,” explains Shackleton. “As water quality improves, swimming conditions get safer. The reduction of organic sediments helps control aquatic weeds by minimizing the nutrient-rich rooting bed that mucky sediment provides for their growth.”
Easy-To-Understand Reporting
Lake decision-makers must demand clear, concise information to share with their stakeholders to demonstrate the value of their lake management investments.
“Lake Management Action Plans should include simple, easy-to-understand analyses, intuitive visualizations, and clear language with relevant results that accurately and objectively measure performance and improvements by measuring what matters,” says Shackleton.
Preserving the cherished lake lifestyle requires lake stewards to be empowered with the right guidance and information to make informed decisions. By focusing on root causes rather than symptoms, implementing comprehensive monitoring of key metrics, and adopting proactive, science-based strategies, stewards can ensure the long-term health and resilience of their lakes.
Clear communication and evidence of positive outcomes and improved lake health support these efforts, fostering transparency and accountability. Ultimately, these actions safeguard not only the natural beauty of lakes but also the precious memories and experiences they provide for generations to come.
Jeff Elliott is a Torrance, Calif.-based technical writer. He has researched and written about industrial technologies and issues for the past 20 years.