The Board of Supervisors recently took up their own proposal to manage lake cyanobacteria by proposing to spend 1.5 million dollars for sonic buoys. The buoy idea also recently came before the Technical sub-committee of the Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC) for a recommendation to test as a potential management tool to control cyanobacteria in the lake. No test has been completed as yet for this proposal but it as well as eight others sound very good on paper and was tentatively approved for testing by UC Davis. The total cost for potential lake remedies proposed to the state including the buoys comes in at $14 million dollars. What’s going on here? Why does the Board of Supervisors believe they have to fund their own cyanobacteria intervention project?
The County has a strong interest in having a lake suitable for tourists during hot summer days and a smelly cyanobacteria bloom can dampen that economy quickly. So, the BRC for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake was launched by Assemblywoman Aguiar-Curry in 2017 to develop strategies to clean up the lake. The main culprit is thought to be increases in nutrient loading from past mining and storm water sediment runoff. So it would seem a lake management program to manage the nutrient budget of the lake to reduce favoring cyanobacteria would be the goal. Is a watershed management program being developed and are these projects aimed by a master plan? Maybe not.
By all accounts, Clear Lake has had science projects to determine what caused cyanobacteria blooms dating back to the 1960’s. The blooms were not a problem before 100 years ago and “Clear” Lake would have been a good name as the lake was probably very clear except on rare occasions. Visibilities into the water column probably reached over ten feet on most calm days and probably over 20’. But few measurements exist to document the normal conditions and changes back that far. So it’s all conjecture except for core studies of sediments by both UC Davis and UC Berkeley, plus winter clarity measurements taken during low turbidity periods.
There have also been many studies over the recent years to learn how the lake works. More recently, the BRC approach which was borrowed by Agiar-Curry’s staff from another project done years ago, was developed to support getting student study dollars from the State for UCD student-projects. This is how the university keeps that program going. That process morphed into additional agencies and private companies getting into the money quest and making proposals. Of course their proposals must be studied by UCD.
If County Supervisors are getting nervous about projects being proposed that will cost millions and take years while student projects are finished, maybe county money would be better spent focusing on funding that counts for the county. Hire a consultant with high-level technical background unavailable to the county to sort through all the studies of the past 60 years to determine the best lake management approach including a county master plan. Such a science based plan might also serve to guide the “best idea to fund approach” by the State and save all tax payers some money and begin to clear up the lake faster.
Jim Steele is a former Lake County Supervisor, former BRC founding committee member, a technical subcommittee member, retired state scientist after 30 years and a former CSU fresh-water ecology adjunct professor.
