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Fog/Mist ~ High: 42°F ~ Low: 27°F Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012 |
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Spring Turn Over: It's Golden!
Posted Monday, April 12, at 1:23 PM Yesterday morning I went down to the shores of West Okoboji and saw the water a slight murky gold. Gold fuzz covered the underwater rocks. My heart sang! A good sign of spring diatom bloom! Diatoms are tiny algae with golden brown pigment. As a sign of spring, they are the underwater equivalent of crocuses and daffodils. ...
Aren't All Our Lakes Recreational? The Iowa Department of Natural Resources wants to hear from you about new standards to protect recreational uses for Iowa lakes. They will be holding a public meeting on THURSDAY, JAN 14 at 6pm at the Waitt Bldg at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. I have a conflict and can't attend, so I especially want you to go and be eyes and ears for me. You can read about the rules at http://www.iowadnr.gov/epc/09nov/8.pdf...
Looking Back, Looking Forward OK, so I wrote in my last blog that I would explain why the non-listing of the East Okoboji, Minnewashta and Gar lakes as Outstanding State Waters in the new water quality anti-degradation rule making was not cause for despair. And I still promise to meet that promise - but first the 2009 calendar is ticking to its end, meaning it is time look back before moving forward into the New Year...
West Okoboji at 3am and the Big News I woke up at 3am last night and had a hard time getting back to sleep until I realized I had good company: I realized West Okoboji was awake, too. Even though I live a few blocks away from the lake, I could hear her (him?) groaning, but this wasn't any old groan. ...
Are All the Iowa Great Lakes Outstanding? The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is asking for your opinion about new water quality rules during a public hearing to be held at Mahan Hall, Iowa Lakeside Lab on Thursday, September 4 at 6:00 pm. The new rules pertain to the Antidegradation provision of the federal Clean Water Act. ...
Pollution Hotspots Identified in Iowa Great Lakes Watershed Assessment John Wills, Dickinson County Clean Water Alliance Coordinator , lead an enlightening discussion about the Iowa Great Lakes Watershed Assessment at during "Conservation Conversations", held over coffee and rolls at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory last week...
KAPUSH! KAPUSH! goes the sound of the flushing toilet, a sound we should worship, the sound of the biggest threat to water quality and human and ecological health being diverted from our Dickinson County Lakes through the treatment powers of what I call the 8th Wonder of the World: the Iowa Great Lakes Sanitary Sewer District. ...
Lower Gar Outlet Comparison Many people believe the road, not the Lower Gar weir, controls the lake levels, and are therefore concerned that any of options presented in the 1999 USACE report would lower lake levels, such that in a normal year water levels would lower faster and by June fall as low as they normally are in August. ...
Lake Vibes! Who would have thunk, lakes have inner vibes! At least, I never thought such a thing until I heard Professor Chris Rehmann,Iowa State University, speak at last Tuesday's faculty lecture Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. This summer Rehman and his graduate students Michael Kohn, Josh Scanlon and Danielle Wain are researching the internal motions of West Okoboji. ...
Lower Gar Again Ha! I had just notified the DCN staff last week that I was afraid I am too busy during the summer to find time to water blog, but here I am. The Lower Gar outlet issue is just too compelling. It is such a tempestuous mix of science, opinion, biology, hydrology, superstitions, suspicions, math, calculus, evaporation, transpiration, drought, and flood, common vs. ...
Waterblogger "Water quality! Everyone talks about water quality, but no one understands what it means!" a retired fisheries biologist would chuckle during our conversations. "Janie, everyone wants water quality, but no one agrees what it is," a mayor of lakeshore town once tried to explain to me. "Water quality is like apple pie and America!" expounded a prominent community member during a Clean Water Alliance meeting...
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ABOUT ME: I live in Okoboji with my husband Hank Miguel in a wonderful house he built mostly himself, located 3 land-ward tiers away from the summer cottage on Des Moines Beach where I grew up visiting my grandmother during the summer months when school was out. The cottage is still in our family, and was initially purchased by my great grandfather F. C. Gilchrist, and remains the heart of family reunions and summer escapades. When I was 10 years old, I walked around Lake West Okoboji with my brother and the neighbor kids. It took us 12 hours, but we lolly gagged along the way, and enjoyed a ride on the roller coaster at Arnold's Park before it was all over. I remember we had to wade our way around the undeveloped shoreline where Iowa Lakeside Laboratory is located, through dark swarms of baby bullheads. I was both fascinated and scared of them, but they did not hurt us. I looked up from the shore across the expansive lawn crowned at the top by the Lakeside dining hall, and wondered what madness went on in that place. Little did I suspect then that I would study, and then work at Lakeside Lab! Today I am the Environmental Education Coordinator at Lakeside. One of my duties includes the coordination of the Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Project, a volunteer lake monitoring program that samples nine lakes in Dickinson County, and is the longest running lake monitoring program in the state of Iowa. I am a Commissioner and one of the founders of the Dickinson County Water Quality Commission, a cooperative entity between county and municipal governments that provides grants to fund water quality projects. I am a past president and currently serve on the board of the Okoboji Protective Association, and am proud to have served previously on the boards of the East Okoboji Lakes Improvement Corporation and the Spirit Lake Protective Association, and am a volunteer with the Dickinson County Clean Water Alliance.
Hot topics Spring Turn Over: It's Golden!(0 ~ 1:23 PM, Apr 12)
Aren't All Our Lakes Recreational?
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Pollution Hotspots in the Iowa Great Lakes
West Okoboji at 3am and the Big News
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