Lake Garfield Working Group September Meeting

The Lake Garfield Working Group (LGWG) held its September meeting by remote call-in on Monday, September 14. Member Michael Germain reported taking select board chair Don Colburn on a boat tour of the lake to survey the presence and density of Eurasian milfoil on the surface and at depth. The committee expressed appreciation of Don’s interest and effort to obtain firsthand knowledge of the situation.

The working group discussed the results of the water quality research funded by the Friends of Lake Garfield (FLG) and the intention to have researcher Shannon Poulin attend the next LGWG to present findings and answer questions. In brief, the conclusion of her final report was that overall Lake Garfield water quality and cyanobacteria were stable for the summer. No major blooms were seen on the lake and only on September 3 was there a visible bloom of inconsistent streams on the surface that disappeared by the following week. Shannon also noted in her report that while there is often a desire to compare data of different lakes, the uniqueness of every lake makes it more useful and important to obtain and compare year-to-year data on the same lake. The LGWG expressed appreciation to the FLG for their continued support of this work.

Dennis Lynch reported on the three ongoing grant applications currently in various stages of development. The awarding of the 604b grant targeting the mitigation of surface water runoff into the lake is pending.

The next meeting of the LGWG is scheduled for Thursday, October 15, at 7 p.m., by remote call in. All interested parties are encouraged to attend using the instructions to be posted on the Monterey town website. — Steve Snyder Lake Garfield Working Group chair