Category Archives: Lake Environment

21 August 2013: Algae Bloom Update

There was a thick green scum driven up against my dock this morning by the gentle current flowing around the lake, it is the carcasses of the cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) that were blooming a few weeks ago. As they die they float to the surface and get driven towards the shore where they collect. Dying cyanobacteria also release various toxins into the water. In high enough concentrations these toxins can kill fish and other wildlife. It’s not that bad here on Clary Lake but it does make for an unpleasant if temporary condition.

This is the end of this algae bloom but I would not be surprised given the hot weather and excessively low water conditions to see another bloom later this fall- typically they’ve been appearing in September or early October.

17 August 2013: Metaphyton growth on the rise?

Many of you heard David Hodsdon talk at the Annual meeting about Metaphyton algae, those green clouds of cotton-candy-like algae that seem to move around the lake. They’re unattached and drift with the winds and current. I spotted some growing on my shoreline a few days ago and the patch has grown considerably since then. The bright green is where the algae has reached the surface. There are numerous smaller patches. Clumps of this stuff can get pretty large but there’s no indication that Metaphyton growth is becoming a problem, but it is an interesting phenomena for sure.

14 August 2013: Avian Haven Loon Update and about that dead loon from last summer…

I got an email update from Diane at Avian Haven today reporting that the loon they’re taking care of is showing signs of improvement and an added surprise- she was able to track down some information about the loon that turned up dead over by the shore by Hodsdon Lane last year in July (picture at left). I had mentioned to her that we’d found a dead loon and that it had been sent to Tufts University but we hadn’t heard back anything. At the time my State Wildlife Biologist friend Keel Kemper told me that Loon-on-Loon fighting was a common cause of loon mortality. It would appear that was the case with the bird from last summer.

George — I am happy to report that your loon lived the night and is showing slight improvement today. She had refused fish yesterday afternoon, but ate quite readily this morning. She is also spending more time in the water and less time on the haul-out. She is still quite lethargic, preferring to drift quietly rather than swim around (much less dive), but we are seeing some signs for the better, and are hopeful that they will continue.

Continue reading →

13 August 2013: Loon crash lands on Route 215, ends up at Avian Haven

I got a phone call today while making lunch that made me turn down the radio and ask if I’d really heard what I thought I heard. Jack Holland called to tell me that his son Taylor and a friend had found a loon that had been “hit by a car” somewhere over by the State boat launch. I grabbed my camera and headed over but I was looking for someone with an injured loon on the side of the road, not a concrete forms truck parked in the driveway leading to Clary Knoll Farm. I should have stopped to ask because that was them. Jack called me again and confirmed that was them so I headed back over and found they had just made the hand off to some volunteers from Avian Haven, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Freedom. The bird had been found sitting in Route 215 near the end of the Sennott Road.

I spoke briefly to the people who had come to pick up the bird but they had already put it in the back of the car and obviously wanted to get going. They told me to contact Avian Haven. I did when I got home, sending them an email. I received the following response a bit ago: Continue reading →

13 August 2013: Lake Water Quality Update

secchi_disk David Hodsdon reports that the lake water quality has improved from 2 weeks ago when an algae bloom was rapidly developing. The secchi disk reading at 9.84′ was almost double the last reading and they observed “particulate matter” on and just under the surface which undoubtedly the decaying carcasses of the blue-green algae that were causing the bloom. I’ve updated the Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page with the data David and Jack collected yesterday.

Speculating wildly, it is likely the cooler weather and slightly lower water temperature that brought about the demise of the cyanobacteria. We’re not out of the woods yet; the most serious blooms we’ve had in recent years have been in late August and September.

05 August 2013 From the archives: THE LOONS OF NEW ENGLAND by Ed Grant

loon2_icon I’ve been going through a raft of documents on a CD that David Hodsdon gave me recently and I came across this piece written by Ed Grant and decided it needed to be posted. I don’t know if it was ever published anywhere, but it certainly deserved to be. Perhaps he wrote it for use in a newsletter. In any event, his recent passing makes this piece seem all the more poignant. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

THE LOONS OF NEW ENGLAND
by Ed Grant

The Common Loon (Gavia Immer)

There is no other sound quite like it, the tremulous wail that floats across a northern lake at dawn, the haunting voice of the northern wilds.

Few people can hear the call of the common loon without being moved, it is truly the sound of the north woods, the wail of the wilderness, and for many visitors to New England, hearing one laugh in the night is a high point of a trip.

The common loon, with its necklace of white and checkerboard pattern on the back, is the species that comes to most people’s mind when they think of loons. There are four other species, the yellow-billed, the arctic, the Pacific and the red-throated, but only the common loon is found south of Canada in the summer, with the southern edge of its breeding range stretching from the Adirondacks through northern Vermont and New Hampshire to Maine. It is strictly a warm-weather resident in the region’s inland, migrating in late fall to the sea from the Maritimes to Florida. Continue reading →

30 July 2013: [UPDATED] Clary Lake has officially entered an algae bloom state

David Hodsdon and Jack Holland completed their routine water quality monitoring task yesterday. I have updated the Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page. David reports that the secchi disk reading he obtained yesterday (4.92′ or 1.5 meters) without question indicates that Clary Lake is experiencing an algae bloom, a fact that should not come as a surprise if you’ve been out on the lake lately. A lake is considered to be experiencing an algae bloom when the secchi disk reading is at or below 2 meters (6.56′). We’re well into bloom territory.

David has been in touch with Scott Williams of the VLMP about this issue and they may be sending someone out to independently assess the situation. The picture at upper left is from last summer’s bloom. It hasn’t gotten that bad yet.

I’ve written recently about algae blooms (here and here) and why we’re more at risk now because of the extreme low water conditions we’re experiencing. I’m going to get on the phone and rattle some cages.

[UPDATE]: I took a ride around the lake this afternoon- with bright sun shining down, I could just barely make out the bottom in 3.5′ of water off the end of my dock. I took a water sample just a bit ago and examined it under a microscope: it is loaded with Anabena cyanobacteria, the blue-green algae pictured at left that is largely responsible for freshwater algae blooms. The transparency of the lake water has deteriorated seriously over the last month: On the 1st of June the secchi disk reading was 10.1 feet; by the 19th it had dropped 2 feet and in the last 10 days dropped another 3 feet. Transparency is now less than 1/2 of what it was a month ago. They’re multiplying. Fast.

21 July 2013: The Great Meadow by kayak

Today my son and I paddled our kayaks across the lake and then 2/3 of the way down the channel towards the dam, almost reaching the abandoned beaver lodge before finally giving up. The channel itself is quite narrow, often only 8′ to 10′ wide and it is largely grown in with reeds. Occasionally it widens out to 15′ or 20′ or more, but even then the navigable portion is still quite narrow. In some places it is almost impossible to tell where it goes; only my familiarity with it and the shallow draft of our kayaks allowed us to get through. The wild rice is just now beginning to flower and it doesn’t look like there is as much as there was last year, but that might change in a few weeks. I took a few pictures which I’ve posted to the Summer 2013 album. The one at upper left was taken right as we entered the channel. Continue reading →

21 July 2013: Declining Water Quality Update

secchi_disk A few days ago I posted about the alarming decline in Clary Lake’s water quality and promised an update. Here it is. Last Friday July 19th, David Hodsdon and Jack Holland hit the lake to conduct their regular water quality data collection exercise. The results have been posted on the Clary Lake Water Quality Data page. The bottom line is that the secchi disk reading (a measure of water clarity or transparency) was 8.04′ (2.45 meters), down from 10.01′ (3.05 meters) on June 30th. For comparison, the average secchi disk reading (based on the average of 88 secchi disk readings taken in the month of July from 1975 to 2011) is 12.28′ (3.74 meters) or 4.24′ (1.29 meters) more than the current reading. In statistical terms, that is a HUGE change- in the wrong direction.

Continue reading →

20 July 2013: A summertime visit to the Great Meadow

I made a sojourn up into the Great Meadow at the northwest end of the lake today, my first since last February and I took a bunch of pictures which have I combined into the panorama at left. It is composite of 7 photographs and it’s been scaled to 50% and at that it’s still 4904 x 713 pixels. I defy you to detect the seams! There’s a link in the caption so you can view or download the full sized image. For those of you who can’t make it out there, hopefully this picture will give you some sense of the impact the draw down of the lake is having.

Continue reading →

18 July 2013: Alarming decline of lake water quality a serious concern

I assume others have noticed how murky the lake water has become. Over the past couple of weeks the water clarity has decreased significantly. No doubt this is due to the hot weather we’ve been getting coupled with a lack of rain and drastically low water levels. With the lake now down 50″ below the top of the dam, more than 875 million gallons of water or nearly 1/2 of all the water in the lake has been drained off. This has allowed the water to warm up significantly and has exposed soft bottom sediments to the effects of wave action, stirring them up and releasing phosphorous (think plant food) that has been until now safely bound up in the mud. Paul Kelley’s thoughtless water level management is poisoning the lake.

I put a sample of lake water under my microscope this morning to see if I could see what might be causing the cloudy appearance. I found a good number cyanobacteria of the genus Anabena which is the blue-green algae responsible for algal blooms. At left is a photograph I took last August of Anabena blue-green algae from the lake. There’s always a little Anabena in the lake, but I think to see this much this early in the season is not a good sign. Given sufficient nutrients, growth of this bacteria can explode. It bears watching.

I met with our resident water quality expert David Hodsdon this morning to discuss this and other things and he agreed that the water clarity has deteriorated. He and Jack Holland will be going out tomorrow morning to perform their regular water quality monitoring which includes secchi disk (clarity/transparency), dissolved oxygen, and temperature measurements. This data gets posted on the Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page. Look for an update to this post sometime tomorrow.

02 July 2013: Clary Lake Watershed Survey Base Map is Online

I’ve put together a Clary Lake Watershed Survey Base Map using Google Maps and watershed boundaries from the Maine Office of GIS for Clary Lake and Three Corner Pond. The map is basically a proof of concept effort, and a work in progress to boot as I’m still learning how to fit all the pieces together. The next step will be to put the 90 or so records of NPS (non-point-source) pollution sites from the original 2001 watershed survey into a database, geo-reference them with latitude and longitude, add pictures and updated information where necessary, and then finally, import them into the map. Continue reading →

28 June 2013: The Clary Lake Watershed Survey and the NPS program

Back in 2001 members of the Clary Lake Association with the assistance of some DEP staff conducted a watershed survey to identify and catalog sources of non-point source pollution. Typically these were areas where soil was eroding and running into the lake: road side ditches, road shoulders, driveways, unprotected shorelines, unstable slopes, clogged, poorly maintained, or improperly installed culverts, etc. Money for erosion control measures was available under the State’s Nonpoint Source Water Pollution Control Grants (“319”) program. 90 sites were identified and categorized as to whether they were Low, Medium, or High priority and a grant was obtained and erosion control measures were implemented at a number of the high priority site

The NPS pollution and “319” grant program is still in existence today. At this summer’s Congress of Lake Associations’ 43rd Annual Maine Lakes Conference held last Saturday the 22nd at Colby College which I attended, Norm Marcotte of DEP gave a short presentation on DEP’s new NPS Tracker Program which is basically like the old NPS program with added spreadsheet functionality and computer mapping features made possible by such programs as Google Earth and Google Maps.

Continue reading →

07 June 2013: Tropical Storm Andrea expected to drop a lot of rain

Tropical storm Andrea is headed north, hot on the heals of an unnamed low pressure system loaded with moisture and it’s all headed this way. The NOAA Graphical Forecast for Maine for the next 24 hours is forecasting 2.5″ to 3″ of rain from this combined weather event, most of it falling tonight and into early Saturday morning. Possible locally higher amounts likely. Rainfall amounts have been steadily revised upwards since last night; a lot depends on how far off the coast Andrea tracks. If it remains closer to the shore, rainfall amounts could be significantly higher. This forecast is more or less consistent with this morning’s Channel 6 News Center weather report. There is a flood watch in effect for Lincoln County from this evening through Saturday afternoon.

The lake level has dropped about 8″ from a high of about -31″ below the top of the dam on May 31st to about -39″ now. This rain should more than replace what has been lost in the last week. I for one am thrilled.

Careful out there folks.

01 June 2013: May Month End Summary

May started out dry but turned into a wet month indeed. On top of a dry April, we received no rain at all for the first 8 days of the month. The lake level started out -46.44″ below the top of the dam and fell at the average rate of 0.6″ per day to -56.52″ by the 17th of May at which point the dam’s gate was closed. Over the next 12 days we received 5.68″ of rain which brought the lake up 25.52″ for a runoff multiplier of 4.5x (4.5″ rise for each inch of rain) which is about what was expected. We ended the month at -31.08″ below the top of the dam. Average rainfall for May is 3.6″. The gate was reopened on the 27th and opened even further on the 30th. Runoff from the May rains has finally diminished to the point where the lake level has started falling again, having fallen just over 1″ as of this morning.

Saturday, June 22, 2013: 43rd MAINE LAKES CONFERENCE

pond_lily1 The Maine Lakes Conference 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM Saturday June 22, 2012 at the Diamond Building, Colby College, in Waterville. Cost is $15 for members, $25 for non-members. The Clary Lake Association is a member of COLA so if you’re a member of the Association and would like to go you can sign up for the reduced price. Here’s a link on the Maine COLA site where you can find out more about the conference and sign up for it.

43rd Maine Lakes Conference Information and signup

The program looks quite interesting. I’ll be going. If you want to go let me know, perhaps we can car pool. I’ve added this program to the CLA Calendar. You can also visit the COLA page on Facebook.

26 May 2013: Dam Gate Open Again

boo-hiss-custom I was in my driveway cutting wood about 11 am this morning when I happened to look up at a passing car and by golly if it wasn’t Paul Kelley, headed towards Jefferson. Only one thing would bring Paul to Whitefield on a nice day like this: to open the dam. So when I was sufficiently tired of chainsawing on my wood pile I took a drive over to the dam and sure enough, the gate was open again. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky: the gate was closed for only 10 days and in that time the lake rose over 2 feet.

One has to wonder what motivates Paul Kelley these days- he certainly isn’t trying to win friends and influence people. And what makes him think that a little water going through that hole in the dam is going cause significant damage to the dam? It might make the hole a little bigger, but the first thing anyone who goes to repair the dam is going to do is remove that whole rotten concrete plug, hole and all.

Now is when loons establish their nest and start sitting. Sadly, in a repeat of last year’s loon nesting disaster, with the gate open again, falling water levels will doom any attempt the loons make to raise a family this year. Good going Kelley. You can’t win for losing.

26 May 2013: The rain has ended!

swimming That was quite a stretch of wet weather eh? This afternoon as the sun started to break through I marveled at how long it has been since I’ve seen it, and how much rain we’ve gotten this month. April was a very dry month and May started out just as dry with no rain for the first 8 days. Since then we’ve received 5.5″ of rain which has so far brought the lake up 21.6″ with most of the rise occurring in the last 5 days. This afternoon the lake level sits at 34.9″ right at the bottom of the hole in the dam. As of this afternoon there was no water coming through the hole but as the lake continues to rise over the next few days that will change.

In any case, get out there and enjoy the (relatively) high water while it lasts. The lake hasn’t been this high since late June last summer and there’s no telling what to expect as the summer advances. The State boat launch is usable now and if you’re careful you won’t have any trouble getting your boat in the water. There’s 2.1′ of water over the foot of the ramp which is just a little shy of the design specification of 2.3′. Be mindful of the rocks- the water is only about 12″ deep 20′ off the end of the ramp.

I thought Kelley was going to open the gate this weekend in an attempt to keep the water level below the hole in the dam as he did last summer but he hasn’t touched it. Surprise, surprise. Last year he was ostensibly concerned about the impact of high water on the integrity of the dam and he did everything he could to keep the level -40″ or more below the top of the dam. Now maybe everything has changed; he has been referring to the dam as the “breached dam that formerly impounded Clary Lake” as if he’s given up on the useless, broken relic. Still, he’s trying to sell it and you’d think he’d want to keep it from deteriorating further especially considering he’ll probably still own it, and have to fix it, when the lake level order goes on.

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

24 May 2013: Lake Level is UP

It isn’t often that I update the water level charts more than once a day but I did this day, the water was coming up so fast you could almost watch it rise. The lake has come up a little more than 12″ since last Monday when it started raining, rising from -56.52″ below the top of the dam to -44.16″ earlier this afternoon and they’re forecasting rain for a couple more days too so the lake isn’t done rising by a long shot. Runoff was limited at the start because most of the rain soaked into the dry ground rather than running off into the lake the ground is now saturated and runoff rates are more or less normal now.

You’ll notice a new feature on the water level charts: a straight black line across the chart at an elevation of -34″ below the top of the dam which is the approximate elevation of the bottom of the hole in the dam. When the water rises above this level it will start pouring through the hole. Last year Kelley did everything he could to keep the lake level below -40″ to prevent enlargement of the hole, causing further damage to the dam. If he keeps up this practice this year, expect him to open the gate this weekend.

18 May 2013: Fun and games launching boats

I stopped by the State boat launch this morning to see what was going on. As I was arriving some folks were getting ready to leave, having given up on trying to get their boat in the lake. Understandable given that there are rocks sticking out of the water 20′ off the end of the ramp. They had a standard fiberglass bass boat- not a chance they could have gotten it off the trailer no matter how far they backed it in. Then a pickup pulled in hauling a 14″ aluminum boat about the size of mine; even with the trailer backed in off the end of the ramp the boat wasn’t touching the water. Only brute strength and sheer determination succeeded in them getting their boat in the water.

Later in the afternoon I decided to take my boat out for a spin, it has been a while and the water had receded quite a bit from my little dry-dock slip and I had trouble getting it into the water. Finally got her launched and was tootling across the lake when I noticed some people over at Art Enos’s place trying to get their boat in the water. They had a typical bass boat, fiberglass with a big motor and they were having trouble. They finally succeeded by backing into the water fast and then hitting the brakes; each time they did this, the boat slid a little further off the trailer. After 3 such attempts the boat finally floated free. Not what you call a convenient way to launch a boat… and they’re lucky they didn’t get their SUV stuck in the mud. Wish I’d had my camera….