The Beaver River Watershed Alliance has announced more details on their plans for Jessie Lake.
The Alliance released the results of a portable air monitoring station they placed on the north side of the lake in May. They discovered that the lake was releasing large amounts of Hydrogen sulfide, causing the lake’s trademark awful smell.
The Alliance is now planning to collect water samples this summer. Program Manager for the alliance Colin Hanusz says as far as he’s aware no samples have ever been collected from the lake for research. Step three of the project is scheduled for next year.
“Phase three is some riparian restoration around the lake. It’s known that putting vegetation along the shores of lakes and rivers will improve the water quality, taking up toxins that are flowing into it, whether its fertilizers or whatnot. There’s lots of opportunity to do that around Jessie Lake. It’s pretty low technology yet effective.”
The planting would be part of a larger project the Alliance has planned, pending a grant from Alberta Environment. The Alliance wants to restore the shorelines of several lakes in the region, with Jessie Lake planned for year two.
On the educational front, the group is looking to replace some of the information signs along the trail surrounding the lake with new ones. The signs would simply use the same posts as the ones installed by the Jessie Lake Wetlands Society fifteen years ago, many of which are in rough shape or missing completely. The Alliance requested the town to assign staff to install them and a thousand dollars in funding to cover part of the costs for the whole project. Council approved the request.
Further actions may be determined pending the results from the air testing and water samples.