Monthly Archives: February 2018

Getting Ready for 2018 Lake Monitoring

by: Angela Danovi

Although it often seems like we are still in the middle of winter, our 2018 lake monitoring season is just around the corner.  This year, lake monitoring will kick off on Sunday, April 22 and the season will go into September.  For lake volunteers, this monitoring program gives them an opportunity to combine their love of the lake with their interest in observing seasonal changes on the lake and protecting water quality.  For those who take a professional interest in the long-term water quality trends in the lake, the data from this volunteer program is critical to learning how the water at a given site on the lake changes over a season and the data will help to establish some long-term trends on water quality at each site and across the lake.

This year we will be monitoring at seven sites on Beaver Lake:

  1. Upstream of the Intake
  2. Nursery Pond
  3. Prairie Creek
  4. Ventris
  5. Rocky Branch Marina
  6. Middle of the lake between markers 6 & 5
  7. Beaver Dam

In addition, we will be monitoring three smaller lakes in Beaver Lake Watershed which have water that flows to Beaver Lake.  Those are Lake Atalanta near downtown Rogers, Lake Seqoyah near Elkins, and Lake Wilson in Fayetteville.  This will be the first year we will be monitoring all three smaller lakes.

Later this month, we will be releasing the annual report detailing last year’s monitoring data.

The lake monitoring program is always in need of interested volunteers to help fill sites when previous volunteers retire. To volunteer you will need a boat to access Beaver Lake or one of the smaller lakes.  Training and equipment is provided to volunteers. If you are interested in lake monitoring, please contact Angela Danovi at 479-295-7717 or by email at [email protected]