8615-R4_ML&P_LSLA_2024_SummerNewsletter_Web

Water Quality Update Janet Slack

The LSLA Water Quality Team did an outstanding job of monitoring Little Sebago last summer – going out to collect samples and data every two weeks from May until the end of September. We again worked closely with students from St. Joseph’s College to get a good picture of the health of our lake. Special thanks go to our boat drivers over the summer: Kevin Kaserman, Bob Desrosier, Pam Wilkinson and Kristi Sarchi. Lake water quality is a delicate balance between dozens of factors. While on the lake, we record weather conditions, test for water clarity, and collect temperature and oxygen readings at every meter of depth from the surface to the lake bottom. We do this at the deepest point of each of the three basins of the lake. Finally, we collect water samples for lab analyses of phosphorus, chlorophyll and pheophytin. Each of these tests give us information about how the lake is doing. Clarity is a quick and easy test

that often correlates to overall health of the lake – the clearer the water, the better! Temperature helps us know when to expect plant and algae growth, when the fish are stressed and how much fun the people are having in the water. Dissolved oxygen is required for a healthy lake – for the fish and the beneficial plants and microorganisms. Phosphorus is a very important test because it is the element that is in short supply in a lake environment. Phosphorus levels limit how much plant growth there is in the lake. When phosphorus levels go up, there are more algae blooms and overgrowths of other plants. Chlorophyl is a pigment of plants and helps us see directly how much plant growth there is; pheophytin indicates plants that have already decayed. One of the factors impacting the lake is the water entering the lake from streams. In the past two years, we have a new initiative to look at the

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