Lake Aldo Leopold

In this inaugural episode, I talk to John Schuster about Lake Aldo Leopold and what he and his committee have learned about it and what the long term plans are for our little lake.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey neighbors, it's Dan Bader and this is a new podcast that I'm calling Around the

(00:09):
Lake.
I'm starting this podcast because while the Meadow mix is great and we have the email
listserv available, it's not a long format way to share stories and information about
our unique community.
While I'm currently a member of the board of directors for the HOA, I'm doing this on
my own. It's a skill that I have and as a former reporter and a current communication

(00:30):
professional, I think it has a lot of potential to become a way to get to know our neighbors
and to hear about some of the work happening in Prairie Crossing.
Watson, my board of colleague and I are making our way around the lake right now.
Each episode is going to last about as long as it takes to walk around Lake Aldo Leopold.
Today is Friday, August 23rd and it's a warm day, dry and pleasant with a nice breeze.

(00:56):
I never really had an opinion about the month of August until I was in my early 20s.
My high school and college summer job was as a campground ranger at a New York State park
called Murrow Lake.
Late August at the park was a bit of a relief because we saw the trailing off of the heavy
camping season.
We were getting back to school and we rangers fresh off our busy season enjoyed the slowdown.

(01:22):
One day in late August the ranger on the shift before me was headed out the door with her
lunch pail and stopped to turn her face to the sun.
She said that she just loved August for its hot days and cool nights and weeks without
the humidity of July.
Now I always think of her at this time of year in that description. It's certainly one

(01:42):
of those days now.
The prairie knows its August too. The grass is starting to droop under the trails and
rust at its tips. The compass plans and prairie docks are well past peak and the golden rod
is rushing in to take their place.
I didn't plan it this way but it's fitting that this first episode is about our little
lake.

(02:02):
Our guest today is John Schuster, the resident of the chair and chair of the HOA lake committee
and a passionate advocate for learning about the lake.
He's written about the work of the committee and the meadow mix for several issues and
speaks at the board meetings but I thought we needed to spend some more time with him
to hear what he's learned and where the work he and his colleagues are doing is headed.

(02:23):
Here's John.
John Schuster, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for having me, Dan.
Tell me a little bit about yourself. How long have you lived here and what do you do?
We lived here for 26 years. We raised three kids here. They're now grown and married.

(02:47):
We moved out from the plains and one of the reasons we moved out was better air quality.
My background is in combustion and emissions and I did a lot of work. Originally in combustion
and engine design and later I migrated into sensors and transducers that are used for
monitoring those types of things. So I had a lot of background in measurement and testing

(03:09):
and looking at different chemical aspects of the atmosphere. So I'm interested in also
the liquid aspects of the water and my interest was kind of piqued by a postcard that I got
from the Army Corps of Engineers saying that there was going to be a project out here.
So that's when I first found out about it and started getting interested.

(03:30):
Okay, but about when was that? I'm thinking it was in about the 2017-2018 time frame.
It was when we first started having a lot of discussions. There was a permit set of drawings
and test reports that were used to try to describe what we needed in terms of dredging

(03:53):
the lake. There was, at that time, we had an environmental team that was in place and
before they disbanded, one of the recommendations they had made was to dredge some of the areas
that had accumulated some sediment and to try to stabilize some of the shoreline so that
that sediment wouldn't fall back in again. So that started the program and they had to

(04:16):
file a lot of documents to do that. There has to be approval by State Department of
Natural Resources, Army Corps of Engineers, the stormwater management district of Lake
County, the village. There was a lot of, there was like a wetland delineation study that
they did to study the whole area around the lake and what would drain into it. They had

(04:40):
reports on the depth of the water and the depth and the thickness of what they thought
of the sediment. They had tested some parts of the sediment to see what chemistry was
in it to make sure that we weren't taking anything out that might possibly be harmful
and also that gave some guidance on how the sediment would need to be disposed.
So John, for people that don't maybe just moved here or just might not be aware, tell

(05:07):
us about our lake. Just pretend I don't know anything. What is it supposed to be here?
Tell me about the lake.
Okay, well my understanding before we moved here, the development was already the first
phase that already started. My understanding was primarily tillable acreage. I think it
was a corn. I had seen one photograph that it was a satellite photograph that it was

(05:30):
actually a corn field. So it was my understanding that it was dug out of a field of acreage
of about 20 acres and they dug it 14 feet deep. There was some discussion of going deeper
but there was a cost associated with that. So they did it 14 feet, 20 acres and the
key part of it is that this is a planned unit development where you need to account for

(05:55):
any drainage or runoff that occurs when you build roads, driveways, houses with shingles
on the roofs. And so there has to be some percentage of the land has to be arable land
that will allow for water absorption and drainage. So I think one of the key initial objectives
was to put in place a stormwater management and retention plan. And that was done with

(06:22):
the idea that they could use the prairie. And so with the system of swales which were
designed by the civil engineering team, which swales meaning they're like contours of the
land that allow for drainage in between the different pods and the prairie or the different
lanes of houses, the water would all come down to a logical and thought out location where

(06:47):
it accumulates in the lake. And thinking being that that water is not just going to run off
the roads and driveways but it's going to get filtered through the prairies.
Yeah, I was thinking about that. If you live in a cul-de-sac and you have a green space
in the middle, that's part of the lake in a way. And that little culvert that goes
under your driveway and the little lowland that's right in front of your house, it's

(07:11):
kind of a gutter that feeds right to the lake. It's very all planned out. All the water drains
right to that lake for the most part.
And that's one of the aspirations we have the late committee in terms of what's on our
radar screen longer term is to have the civil engineering firm that we've engaged give an
explanation to us of what that plan looks like. So sort of boil down the engineering

(07:33):
drawings to something so a visual flow that shows residents really how they're particular
a lot or how different aspects of the common areas all feeds into that lake and then where
the lake goes from there.
And the way we use our lake matters when it comes to lake management, right? I mean,
I think people think of the activities we do as natural for lakes but that's not always

(07:58):
the case and we have a multi-use lake here.
Right. That's one of the challenges is that it's even though it's primary function is
stormwater retention, it's also used for aesthetics, it's used for boating, light boating, non motorized
boats, it's used for recreational fishing. It's also used to sanctuary for some endangered
species of fish. And one of the most important uses socially and for entertainment standpoint

(08:23):
is it's used as we have a swimming beach. So the swimming and the beach aspect of it's
really important to a lot of community members that use that as a focal point for some other
social activity during the summer.
Sure. And I guess the reason we have a lake committee, right, it's not that the lake is

(08:44):
unmonitored. Lake County Health Department does monitor it to their capacity but the
reason we have a lake committee is to monitor the health of the lake and to know what we
need to do to keep it healthy.
I think the monitoring kind of, we kind of backed into that part of it because we were
told that well in addition to the bacterial monitoring that the county is doing, you need

(09:07):
to look at the blue-green algae problem. So, and we were advised to take a look at that.
So we did because other lakes in the county have had a serious problem with that. So that's,
that was something that the committee took on as part of it. But really our initial primary
focus was how do we take a look at what the state of the lake is and what do we need to

(09:28):
do for it? So do we need to go do another phase of dredging or do we need to be doing
something to manage the aquatic plants or do we need to be managing the algae or the fish
population and that really will, it comes down to two components to that. One is that
we need to assess what we have. We need to observe, test and measure and then we need

(09:49):
to get the input of the residents in terms of what their priorities are because you can,
you know, on the one hand, you can foster the growth of aquatic plants, but the swimmers
may not like that. Fishermen may like it, but the swimmers won't. Or you can wipe out
the aquatic plants, won't be very good for the fish, but you'll have a nice clear lake
area for swimming. So we need to really work on, on balancing all the multi-uses of the

(10:13):
lake. Sure. And yeah, I guess I was dancing around a little bit, but how we, the dredging
was really, you know, the, the association has put aside money for that and has spent
money on it already. And that was part of the need for a committee to, some of that
knowledge is left. And I guess we needed someone else to step up and learn about it. And, and

(10:38):
we did that through your committee. Yeah. And one of the things our committee found
was that there's really, there's the history didn't get passed on necessarily. So one of
the activities we're doing is we're making a lake book, both in a physical form, which
is easy to look at and use as a reference. And also we'll have that electronically so
it could be replicated. And that would, that has the, the tech, the previous test reports,

(11:02):
it has the engineering drawings, it has water quality reports, it has background information
on what, it has a dredging primer that we were given by ILM environments. It has other
things like how do you prevent a fish killer? What do you worry about to make sure you don't
have a fish killer or how do you deal with algae problems? So we're trying to put all

(11:25):
that information into a book. And then that way it'll transcend any individuals on a committee
or any individuals on a board, but we'll have something that will get passed on from group
to group. And hopefully coming out of that as well, we'll have a lake management plan.
Once we've looked at our measurements and talked to the community about what their objectives

(11:47):
are, we can put a plan together and then that can be something that subsequent groups can
march through over the coming years. It's not a one year deal. It's a multi year maintenance
plan. Yeah. There are a couple of things you, you hit on there that I want to maybe expand
on a little bit. I think probably foremost on people's minds and maybe the first time

(12:07):
I paid attention to it or that anybody paid attention to it was the blue green algae.
What's the acronym HAB? Hartle algae bloom. Hartle algae bloom. And then we may have been
close to one or had something happen this year where we spotted blue green algae and
a lake County health department was did test for it. I guess in June, maybe July, July

(12:34):
and then July again. Yes. What do we know about that now that we didn't know before
about blue green algae and how it affects our lake? Well, we know we should probably
look for it. We may have had it before and not known it, but it's probably, it probably
was not. And certainly this year it was not at a serious enough level that it would cause
someone harm, but it was more of an alert beware that this might create a bloom. And

(12:59):
one of the reasons we did at cautiously is because there's been a long lead time between
when we get a test, let me take a sample and let me get a test result. And if the weather
moves in the wrong direction is very warm or sunny, we can potentially have those algae
that are sitting there, bloom into a toxic, they can generate toxins that could be harmful.

(13:22):
So I think we've learned how to monitor and I think we can be a little bit more systematic
in how we do it. And we've learned what the levels are that might be harmful or not. And
I think this year the board and the property managers, they acted within abundance of caution,
which as we learn about this, we can, you know, you can maybe figure out a little bit

(13:46):
better what your margin is for these types of things.
So okay. And then, and then we'd mentioned, you know, just studying the lake, what are
the factors of how lakes are assessed? You mentioned terms like bathymetric studies,
chemicals say what, what are we concerned about? What are we watching?

(14:08):
Okay, so the bathymetric study is basically how deep is the water? I'll show you a contour
plan of that and then associated with that would be a sediment measurement of how much
sediment is on the bottom. And we have a different way we're going to do that now that we think
is going to be a little bit more accurate. But so that's the first thing just physically,

(14:28):
how big is the lake and how deep is it and how much of its water and how much of its
either sand or muck or whatever. The next thing is what about the quality of the water?
And first of all, there's a simple physical measurement called the Secchi Diss, which
you can immerse in the water and see how far down it goes before you disappear. And
even though the volunteer lake management program for the state's no longer active,

(14:52):
Patrick Auburn from our development has, our committee has been working with the county
to try to resurrect some aspects of that. And Patrick's been out taking Secchi Diss readings.
So we have seen some decrease in the depth at which we can see down. So it tells you
basically how cloudy the water is. Yeah. And why does that matter? Well, if it's cloudy,

(15:13):
then you have one of two things in it. You either have a lot of particulates like duster
or whatever, or you've got a lot of microbes or algae or small organisms, whether they're
plant or animal. I'm not, you know, biologically knowledgeable enough to tell you. But that
so it tells you you're now getting stuff in that water. It's not clear anymore. So then

(15:35):
then so then when that happened, so the next step was Jim Bland, who's an aquatic biologist
who founded and managed ILM environments. He's now retired, but he's been very helpful
in mentoring us in this area. He went out and took a sample. So the next step is once
you see it's getting cloudy, go out and take a sample and then look at the specimen and

(15:58):
see if you can identify certain bacteria, which were identified as being bacteria that
will potentially generate a toxin, which then requires another test, which is a chemical
test to see whether or not the toxins are present. So that's kind of the sequence we
went through. That's from a biological just algae standpoint. So that's where we're at

(16:21):
now is we went and put that in place so that if we we got through that hot spell, and I
think we maybe will do one more test because the last one was very global. We didn't find
algae. We found algae, but not as many as before. And we didn't find any detectable
detectable levels of toxin. So that's maybe the biological aspect of it. But the other

(16:43):
aspect of it is water chemistry. So that really can tell you a lot. So we've had so hey, and
associates, which is the engineering and ecological consulting firm that the board has hired.
They've been out and they've taken the first set of samples in August here, and they'll
do more in September. And this is analogous to what the county did. If you look at the

(17:06):
county website, there's a Lake Leopold study was done in 2022. So we're trying to follow
that same set or the same sort of suite of measurements that they've done as well. And
we'll look at the chemistry of the water where you look at nitrogen and different forms and
phosphorus in different forms. You'll look at the pH to see how acidic the water might

(17:28):
be because that might affect what's happening. And conductivity is something we would look
at because it tells you mineral content because we find we have quite a bit of chloride in
that lake. So that's one of the things that we're well above average on, which might be
related to the salt on the roads around here.
Yeah, I read that report. I might be a geek about this, but I actually found it really

(17:50):
interesting to just what Lake County had produced anyway. Whoever wrote it just did a great
job putting it in terms of at least I could understand. But yeah, it looked like compared
to all the other lakes in the area or the at county wide average that although Leopold
was pretty good shape except for salinity. And then that was and and

(18:13):
Well, the other issue is dissolved oxygen. So that's the other really important measurement
besides the chemical content. Well, first of all, we'll look at the phosphorus. That's
one of the things Patrick is doing with the county and the county isn't able to support
a lot of the student resource limitations, but he is getting samples back. He's taking

(18:34):
samples and getting data back from the county and phosphorus, because that's the fuel that
could be generating biological growth, whether it's algae or plants. So that's an important
one. But we're fairly low in terms of that level. So we're checking that. But the dissolved
oxygen is an important measurement and that really needs to be taken in a profile manner.

(18:56):
In other words, you start at the top and work down towards the bottom and see how the oxygen
profile changes. And you need to do that over time, not only throughout the season, but
even during the day, because in the morning and slow in the afternoon, it's high. And
that's the plant growth generating oxygen. And the fish, if we want fish, right? And

(19:16):
we're at borderline in terms of five, I can't remember the exact. I always get the units
mixed up. I think it's milliliters, milligrams per liter. I'm not really sure. But five is
the number. And we dropped from five down to three to even below one at the bottom.
So for fish, below five, you start to see it affect their ability to spawn. And below

(19:39):
that thing, they start to die. So when the late contractor comes out and finds this guy
to load his own oxygen level, they're going to be very hesitant to try to kill off algae
or plant growth, because that is going to reduce the photosynthesis that generates oxygen.
And then it's going to drop that will drop the oxygen content even lower and then potentially

(20:00):
kill off the fish. So by trying to fix the algae problem, they could potentially make
the situation worse by generating a fish kill. So we've now taken the position that less
is more. And we're just going to live with the situation that we have for now and monitor
it and make sure that the health conditions are okay.
Interesting. And does it, it must vary even across the lake where it's shallow versus

(20:22):
where it's more deep, where that dissolved oxygen is?
Well, we don't know because really what's been done is there's a, there's the deepest
part of the lake is where the test points have been. So there's been one up near the
surf. And so the, there's a test point sampled, like maybe three feet below the surface and

(20:44):
another three feet above the bottom. So what we did this time is we took those same sample
points because we want to be able to correlate to what Lake County has done. So we're building
a history over time, but additionally, we took samples up in the North Bay, which is
sort of congested because it next down, you don't get the flow in and out of there that
you do in the rest of the lake. And then we took samples across from the beach at the

(21:08):
Southeast end. So those are really the, the primary inlets and outlets of the lake. And
so that will answer that kind of question because we really don't have the data to do
that. Yeah.
To make that conclusion at this point.
Interesting. Okay. So we talked about the chemical composition of the water, the depth
of the lake at various points. And that would give us an idea of the depth of the sediment

(21:31):
too. And then you said you'd take it all in the end and put it into a, I guess, into a
presentation that the community could read and then make a decision what we want to do.
Yeah. We've gotten similar feedback to what you said of people who have read that Lake
County report and they actually provide a template that you can use to build a similar

(21:55):
report. So we've asked HAYA Associates to use that as a guideline. And part of their
contract used to have a meeting with the community and explain what the results are. At which
point then we could have a discussion with the community like what's more important?
Is it fishing? Is it swimming? Or do you want both? Or how do we balance that? Or maybe

(22:15):
do we need more sand on the beach? Is that all muddy underneath there under the water
by the beach? I don't know. And if we do, then we should think about maybe we put a barrier
down there so that we don't have plant growth and then put sand on top of it. Or do we need,
if people are really interested in fishing, maybe we need to be restocking, looking at
the population of that. Or, you know, so we need to have the discussion with the community

(22:39):
on what we want to do. Do we want to go out and help stabilize the island? Is that important
to people? Yeah, because obviously the next question
is where the sediment comes from. If we're kind of a closed system, you know, where if
there is sediment and, you know, we decide we would want to dredge it out, like where

(22:59):
does it come from? For us, there are two sources because there's
no significant flow in the lake. There's a very long retention time for any water coming
and going out. There are two sources. One is the bank collapsing and falling into the
water. And then you have dirt and sort of physical sediment that accumulates. And that

(23:23):
was addressed a number of years ago. The environmental team, I think, did a pretty thorough job
of stabilizing most of the shoreline where that was a problem. They didn't get out near
the island. And I think that was probably logistically more difficult. But that is one area that
we might want to stabilize. So that's the first area is sediment falling in from the

(23:44):
side, which is now not much of a problem anymore, okay, because we've stabilized the shoreline.
But the second one that's probably bigger for us is organic matter, the plant matter
that dies and then accumulates on the bottom. And if you don't have a lot of oxygen, then
you don't have the chemical conditions for bacteria to operate on that muck and sediment

(24:06):
and decompose it. So that may be so one of the questions that's hanging in the back of
our mind, do we need to be doing some sort of oxygenation or aeration in certain areas
or or not? We just don't know. That's something that's why we want to take the measurements.
We want to ask some people that are experts to see if maybe that's a better investment

(24:30):
than trying to dredge it out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So is there anything
that that I haven't asked you about yet that maybe we should talk about? I can't really
think off the top of my head. It's been pretty thorough. I think we covered all the measurements

(24:51):
that we're trying to do. The bathymetric study, we're going to get that redone because it's
been so long since we hit was 2017 since that was done before. So hopefully a board will
approve of another bathymetric study with sediment mapping. And this time what we're
going to do is as opposed to probing it with sticks and things, these guys have got a pretty

(25:14):
sophisticated sonar system where we can go and scan the bottom and then the sonar can
tell it can differentiate between the water, the solid liquid interface and between the
soft solid and the hard solid interface. So we should have a nice map this time to be able
to look at what's down there. And then given that, we would then know maybe the next step

(25:36):
might be to pull up some samples and see if we still have that organic muck that's down
there. And if that's the right approach that we need to take. Yeah. Okay. Well, John Schuster,
thanks so much. And thank you for your work and the work of the people on the committee,
the other volunteers. I find it fascinating. I'm glad we have people like you that are

(25:58):
really interested in that because and have that skill set. That's one of the great things
about Prairie Crossing is that we have so many such a depth and range of skill here.
And thank you for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Jeff. Well, that is the first

(26:19):
episode of Around the Lake. I hope you found it as interesting as I do. I've talked to
John about the lake in bits and pieces, but never sit down all at once and talk through
the work he's been doing. I found it fascinating. The goal is to do something like this every
two weeks. If you have an issue or topic that you would like to hear on Around the Lake,

(26:44):
I have my own plans. But if you have some suggestions, please let me know. My email address is Daniel
Bader01 at gmail.com. My last name is spelled B-A-D-E-R. Thanks again to John Schuster and
thanks to you for listening. We will talk to you again in a couple of weeks.