Keep Our Lake Blue gives actions to help Moose Lake

The Moose Lake Watershed Society is coming out with its annual checklist of goals to keep the lake healthy.

The Keep Our Lake Blue campaign highlights 52 actions that people can take to reduce phosphorus and runoff from entering the lake. 

Some of the actions include planting native plants, using water wisely, and considering eco-friendly lawn care.

As residents consider these actions, more studies of Moose Lake will happen this summer, says Kellie Nichiporik, chair of the MLWS.

“We’re doing tributary monitoring this year, as well as the Alberta Lake Management Society is still doing the Lakewatch program. So we’ll be doing some in the lake and tributary monitoring,” said Nichiporik. 

“It’s basically determining the external load, gathering more data about it because they only started that in 2014. And we’ve had variable weather patterns since then.

“It changes with what’s happening climate wise, so normal precipitation. It would be nice to know the normal inflow instead of the extreme.”

They’ll also be keeping an eye on the water levels again because of the recent removal of the weir.

Two weeks ago, the Alberta Lake Management Society published their trend analysis of Moose from testing in 2021, which shows from 1983 that the total phosphorus, the cause of blue-green algae blooms, is increasing.

“We just really want to understand what’s still happening because obviously, it’s been changing. A lot of external factors have been changing,” said Nichiporik. 

“We’re beach monitoring as well for the cyanobacteria. For the last two years, that’s been happening to monitor which species are out there and how concentrated they are. Having a good idea because cyanobacteria has many different species.” 

Nichiporik said that they typically do these tests in late May and early June.

More information on the Society’s Keep Our Lake Blue campaign can be found on their website.