Alberta Lake Management Society Newsletter

July 2014

2014 Scholarship Winner

Congratulations to Lisa Brodziak, a MSc student from Royal Roads University, who won our $2000 ALMS Scholarship this year.

Her project was to gain insight into the processes that are contributing to water quality issues on both Lac St Anne and Isle Lake. She used the model BATHTUB to model lake processes and identify sources of nutrient input into the lakes. It was found that watershed sources and internal lake sediments contribute high amounts of nutrients into both lakes and future management efforts to improve water quality would be most effective by focusing on controlling watershed nutrient inputs. This study may be useful to help educate local managers about the major sources of nutrient input in the lakes and can inform current watershed management planning.

Lisa will be presenting her work at the ALMS Annual General Meeting (and via webinar) on August 27, 2014. Register here (note: this is a separate event than our workshop - see the side bar for details on the two events!).

Regional Planning

The South Saskatchewan Regional Plan was officially revealed this week. Highlights include

If you live, work, or play and have an interest in the North Saskatchewan region you have another chance to weigh in on land-use decisions.

You have until July 31st to complete the North Saskatchewan Regional Plan workbook survey. You don't have to complete it all at once. You can come back to it later and finish where you left off. Learn more about the region and this planning initiative

Have you seen this plant?

This summer ALMS is partnering with ESRD, U of A Herbarium, and LakeWatch volunteers to monitor several lakes for the presence of invasive aquatic plants.
But we need your help in detecting these plants in your lake!

Here are some resources you can use to identify plants we are concerned about and how to tell them apart from similar native plants.

I see milfoil, is it native or invasive? Download Poster
ID Tips for Invasive Plant Species of Concern

Contact Alyssa if you find a suspicious submerged plant and we may be able to identify it for you. Also, if you would like to host a workshop at your lake to learn to identify and search for these plants please let her know.

AIS Boat Launch Signs

Please contact Gavin Berg, Fish and Wildlife ESRD, at gavin.berg@gov.ab.ca or 780-422-3412 to arrange to have an AIS boat launch sign for your lake. Please provide him with this information:

1) Lake name

2) # of launches

3) If you are willing to install the signs

Thanks everyone for your help getting these signs out to our lakes!

Understanding Lakes