2008 season: This was my first year as volunteer for the CSLAP program. We began sampling on June 29,2008 and sampled every other week, usually Saturday or Sunday, for a total of eight samples. Each sampling session consists of recording the date, time of day, outdoor air temperature, water temperature, water depth, sampling depth (1.5 meters), and observations of weed growth, weather conditions or any other condition worthy of note. A short boat ride out to the "secret spot" and the sample is taken and returned to shore. On shore the sample is measured out into individual sampling containers. Different sampling containers have different procedures required before the sample is introduced. Some containers require no preparation, while others need to be filtered and or stabilized with a chemical for preservation. Five sample containers are needed, four of which are frozen and the fifth wrapped in aluminum foil and refrigerated. The samples are then sent to the CSLAP lab in Syracuse via UPS. About 3 days later the styrofoam packing container is sent back ready for another shipment. All in all everything went this year without a hitch and I expect some meaningful results to be gleaned from our effort. I can tell you that the algal bloom we see every year came over one sampling period. The Secci disk, which gauges general water clarity, went from about 18' to about 4' during one sampling period in July. Next year I'm going to try and get more data during the time of the bloom. I'm interested in the correlation between water temperature and water clarity as the bloom develops. If you would like to read the entire current sampling protocol it is here The results from the yearly sampling effort are presented as a report published by CSLAP. The 2004 report can be downloaded at this site. The 2008 report is now ready. 2009 season: I began the 2009 sampling season on 6/21/2009. You can follow along and track the data I report in the spreadsheet below. The sampling protocol calls for us to take bottom samples-- a recommendation based on last year's results. These bottom samples will be taken each sampling session and will tell us more about thermal stratification in the lake (if any). Also I will be sampling the lake for toxic algae. This will be done through the efforts of the NYS Department of Health. Three samples will be taken over the Summer, but I'm not sure how results will be reported. I'll post more on this as I find out. 2010 season: The 2010 sampling season began Sunday May 23, 2010 at 11:30 AM |
Taiken CSLAP |