Sunfish Lake Association Water Issues Update
1) Cyanobacteria Mats – The Sunfish Lake Association Executive and Water Team would like to raise awareness about some cyanobacteria algae mats that have been spotted recently around Sunfish Lake. While small, this bright blue/aqua cyanobacteria can be highly toxic to people and pets.
These are naturally occurring algae that are essential to the balance and functioning of our ecosystem at the lake, however for several years now our lake as been overloaded with nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) throwing things off balance and greatly increasing the odds that these bad blue algae will outcompete and overwhelm the good green algae creating a cyanobacteria algae outbreak that would render our lake unsafe for swimming, unsafe to draw water from, and unusable like an increasing number of lakes around the world.
Thankfully, our weather has been cooler and rainfall plentiful which we hope will help to keep things in check and avoid a significant outbreak incident. However, in the interest of safety please we would caution about drawing water from the lake – particularly for consumption and also urge caution to avoid swimming in any algae slicks or water that doesn’t appear to be normal.
We also remind people to do everything possible to avoid adding to the nutrient load of the lake – this includes no fertilizers, no pesticides, no soaps/shampoos, remove all pet waste from your lawns immediately, etc.
Our Water Team will continue regular testing and monitoring – not only for cyanobacteria and surface algae but also e-coli, fecael coliform, and our planktothrix blob at depth.
2) Beaver – we have at least one, perhaps even two beavers back at Sunfish Lake. They have been sighted numerous times and there has been extensive digging to deepen the outlet of the lake and along parts of the shoreline. However, strangely we have found little tree damage to date. The beavers have to be eating something though so please be sure to wrap with wire any trees that you do not want to lose. Please let us know any sightings and if needed our beaver trapper will be called in as beavers are like rabbits that multiply quickly and can cause significant damage.
