Lake Water Quality

[hockeypuck]

Check out todays Citizen. It contains an article about e-coli bacteria in lake. This has been a yearly problem in some areas of the lake when the water heats up and after heavy rain. The problem usually goes away in a short period of time, but if it's your vacation week it could put a damper on the week. The article also mentions the presence of Cyanobacteria (Blue-Green Algae) and the illness it can cause to both animals and people. Conditions must be right for it to bloom warm sunlit waters and and nutrients. Nutrients could be many things from natural to some not so natural causes. Runoff from those that over fertilizer their lawns could be a contributing factor. This makes for a good argument for the Shoreline Protection Act. The Quality of the lake water should remain the number one priority of all those that use the lake.

[fatlazyless]

The City of Laconia, known as the City of the Lakes, wih a population of about 17,000, gets its' water right out of Lake Winnipesaukee. The Laconia Water Department has been located next to Irwin Marine and its' boat gasoline staion for many years.

What's more important to me is that the water that comes out of my kitchen sink is also Lake Winnipesaukee water, and has been for many years.

Maybe that's the reason why Laconia just celebrated its' 85th Motorcycle Week! Must be something in the water!

[SAMIAM]

Onless the Winnipesaukee river has started running backwards......Irwin Marine makes no difference in the Laconia water supply since the intake is well north of the marina.The water comes out of Paugas bay and is pretty tasty,actually I had a tour of the treatment plant once and it is well run and carefully monitored

[fatlazyless]

Sure, there is a bit of a slow current in Paugus Bay, which is where both the marina and the water dept are next door neighbors. The current is determined by the outflow of the dam. As you know, the Winnipesaukee River can be considered to start from below the discharge of the Lakeport Dam which is the one and only outlet for the 75 billion gallon lake.

And, what about the drainage catch basins that drain away the runoff from adjacent Union Avenue. Where does the water runoff run off to?

[Skipper of the Sea Que]

Here's the link to the Laconia Citizen article about the beaches reopening. Still warnings close by which includes Winnisquam.

Beaches Reopen

There is a thread started yesterday in the Outdoor Recreation portion of the forum that has some other comments on this Problem. That includes the Winnisquam warning and links to yesterday's stories on the bacteria and the 6 beaches that were closed.

This post has those links - plus you can scroll up or down to see the other posts in that thread. Those items include the other beaches that may still be closed.

Beaches open just in time for the weekend.
I wonder where the "line" (number of bacteria) is the determines that there is too much bacteria or the count is good enough for recreational use .