Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program

By Mark H. Stowers

Michigan area lakes are important to both the ecology and economy of Michigan. With more than 11,000 inland lakes that are five-acres and more, the Mitten State outnumbers every other state in the union. Instate, Oakland County has the most of those lakes. But with more and more threats to each freshwater treasure including pollution, invasive species and habitat degradation, Michigan has implemented various conservation initiatives, including the Michigan Clean Water Corps’ (MiCorps) Cooperative Lake Monitoring Program (CLMP). The testing system, organized by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes Energy (EGLE,) dates back to 1974, when leaders came together and decided to start testing lakes to help keep an eye on the health of each.

Over that 50-year period, it’s estimated that only 10 percent of the lakes in Michigan have been tested and data stored to continue research. EGLE workers and volunteers continue to add lakes to the list, as do other organizations such as the Clinton River Watershed Council, Friends of the Rouge (River), and others.

Simply put, the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program is a collaborative effort involving local communities, volunteer citizen scientists as well as government agencies. The program's primary goal is to gather scientific data on water quality, aquatic habitat and biological communities. By engaging citizens in monitoring activities, the CLMP aims to enhance public awareness, promote stewardship and inform management decisions.

Erick Elgin, an aquatic ecologist with Michigan State University Extension is the Lakes Program Manager for the CLMP. He’s been working with the program since 2016.

“I work on lake conservation statewide. That might mean working on the ecology of a lake. It might mean working with individuals on their property to try to put in best practices on their shoreline, for example, to help improve lake habitat and water quality,” Elgin explained. “I work with lake communities as a whole and the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) and EGLE. And also work with our state agencies along with our community groups to preserve, protect and restore our inland lakes.”

Even with volunteers, the program has remained consistent for half a century.

“The program wasn't always called the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program. It's been through different renditions,” Elgin said. “But what's a common thread is that we are a long-term monitoring program. In 1974, there was only one parameter that volunteers could do, and that's called Secchi Disk Water Transparency. That's dropping a disk into the water until it disappears – there's a little bit more to it. But that will then tell you, it's a measure of water clarity. And the protocol that they used in 1974 is the same protocol that we use today. You can compare apples to apples through all of these 50 years. And that's one of the powers of this program, is that level of clarity and long term direction.”

In addition to the water clarity test, these days the volunteers test for phosphorus, chlorophyll a, shoreline erosion, invasive plants and a handful of more test that have been added through the years. The process begins when Elgin is normally alerted by a lake area landowner that something may be off.

“I'll get calls frequently. ‘I've lived on my lake for 20 years and I've never seen it so green.’ We start from that and there are many questions that people who live on a resource or you frequent it a lot, so let's say you fish on a lake a lot or you live on it. You start to make observations and you start to notice a pattern. And if something deviates from that pattern, I might get a call. Or you might see a pattern and you're curious about ‘why is it like this?’”

Once he gets the phone call and asks his standard question of how deep is the lake and where is it located, Elgin pulls up a map and checks the environment.

“If it's in Oakland County and in an urban environment, or let's say it's in Berrien County and in an agricultural environment. Or up north in the UP. I'd start factoring all these things in, asking them questions and then I would also ask them, connecting them back to the program – “Is there any data on this lake?’ Because having visual observations are important but having data can really cue us in to what's happening,” he explained.

The MiCorps CLMP database is public and online and Elgin dives into it often for research to “connect the dots with data.” If there is not data, he asks the prospective researcher if they are up to collect and be part of the process. The training process is both online and in person and is constantly being revised and updated and improved, according to Elgin.

“We have a number of protocols, and we teach and train individuals on how to conduct that scientific protocol,” he explained. “We go step-by-step. Step one, unscrew the caps and rinse the water bottle. It’s very specific. We also we give a background on what the parameter is. Why are we collecting it? What does this data mean? We give meaning to the numbers.”

The in-person training is offered normally twice a year, with one being held at the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association’s annual conference, and the other conducted on a Michigan lake.

“It’s usually a day long. But because we are statewide, people are busy. We also put on a live, online training day. It takes all day to go through all the parameters. People can come and go, depending on what they've signed up for,” Elgin said.

The trainings are also recorded and uploaded online. There are also videos on each protocol and new videos are forthcoming. Once volunteers are trained and sent out, their collections are closely monitored with quality control and fail safes built in.

“We do collect replicates for phosphorus on 10 percent of the phosphorus samples collected,” he said. “And then we match up those numbers. The data is looked at by us and so let's say it's way out of the ordinary. We may look at that, try to figure out what's wrong, contact a volunteer, work with them as we figure out the quality of that data.”

The volunteer samples are often compared to those collected by a professional.

“Then we compare those because we want to make sure that this data is as high quality.as possible. And when we run those tests, they are very well matched. Of course they're not perfect, but that's ecological data,” he said.

The state run organizations collect the data and report to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) so they are in the loop, but CLMP testing is not under any federal regulation.

Working both the upper and lower peninsula, Elgin is busy with all things freshwater.

“Within Michigan State University, there's a new center called the Center for Lakes and Streams. There is a small team of us who work on a variety of different topics when it comes to our inland waters. It may not just be lakes but more of inland waters – all the little streams that connect everybody,” he explained. “It can be streams, wetlands, lakes, but then because we work on the water, what happens on land impacts the water. We do a lot of things that might be water-centric, we'll be working on the land as well. Looking for the source of the problem.”

Elgin and his army of adult volunteers tackle the task of taking samples and recording data and find the problems that need to be taken care of. This year, 320 lakes will be part of the CLMP. Once the testing is done the results are passed off to lake property owners, townships and such to take on the task of remediation. That’s where Paul Hausler, the water resources practice leader of Progressive Companies comes in. Serving as a type of architectural engineering firm, there is also a water resources group as well. The company was formed 40 years ago.

“We're basically biologists in our water resources practice. We're contracted by either lake associations, or a lot of times they're funded through (a) special assessment by creation of a lake improvement board, or a township board oversees the project,” Hausler said. “Our bread and butter is invasive species management where we map it out, design and plan and then we put together bidding documents, bid out the work and then we oversee the work once we have a contract.”

Progressive works with approximately 90 lake communities throughout the state with 12 to 15 in Oakland County alone. With a main office in Grand Rapids, there is also the Detroit office and another in Charlotte, North Carolina. Progressive partners with all of the CLMP entities.

“We mainly work with MSU on educational things. I work with Erick Elgin and Jo Latimore a lot. We all sit on the Michigan Inland Lake Partnership, which is kind of a collaborative group that has agency folks, but also other entities that are interested in lakes,” Hausler said.

The data collected by CLMP volunteers is valuable and used by Progressive and then taken a step further.

“The data is valuable either way. We usually do a little more in-depth than what they do through CLMP. But if you're just interested in tracking overall water quality, I think CLMP is fine. If you're looking to do more in-depth tracking, more different parameters and maybe going a little further into the details, of what could be causing issues, that's where we get involved. We can just expand on the type of data. A lot of times they're doing basic limnological. Limnology is a study of freshwater, basically. They're taking these basic parameters and making determinations on the overall quality of the lake. But if you're looking for specific issues, we can do more parameters or maybe do more in-depth sampling, where we take samples from multiple depths and deeper lakes that can be critical for analyzing. We did a study for Maceday Lake, which is 120-feet deep. We gave them a lot more in-depth reports than what they were getting through CLMP.”

Hausler has seen issues from Mother Nature as well as manmade problems in Michigan lakes during his tenure.

“I think climate change is having an effect. We're seeing the water temperatures are tending to increase over time, and you're seeing less winter ice cover on lakes. That tends to favor some of the invasive plants and helps them grow,” he explained. “Basically, the growing season for aquatic plants and algae has increased in duration. The biggest one still in Michigan probably is Eurasian milfoil, which has been around since the 1960s in Michigan. And then curly leaf pondweed is another one that's been around even longer – but that's pretty much just like a spring problem,” he said. “And another one is starry stonewort, which is termed a macroalgae. It has very large cells and it looks like a plant as it grows, like a plant off the bottom, but it doesn't have true roots. It's kind of anchored on the bottom but without roots.”

Phosphorus is key to lake life but like anything, in moderation. When rainwater run-off from golf courses and homes that use fertilizer pour into lakes and streams, algae and invasive plants have growth spurts and take over the beneficial plant life and choke out the food supply in the eco chain.

“In Michigan, it's illegal to apply phosphorus to existing lawns. You can still buy the starter fertilizer because phosphorus is important for root establishment,” he explained.

Hausler and Progressive do quite a bit of water quality testing and develop watershed management plans,including creating best management practices within the watershed to reduce the amount of phosphorus and sediment coming into lakes.

“We do kind of detailed aquatic plant surveys throughout the summer. And then we use geo-reference maps to provide to whether they're applying aquatic herbicides, which are regulated through the state of Michigan and the EPA. And then if it's plants that can be managed through mechanical harvesting, we map out those and we kind of oversee the plants that can be managed through mechanical harvesting,” Hauser explained.

CLMP has been the baseline standard for lake testing in Michigan for half a century and provides many beneficial pros for its existence. Overall, CLMP engages the local community to report a lake to them and also engage that same community in conservation efforts. By recruiting volunteer citizen scientists, the program fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility among residents towards their local lakes. This increased community involvement can lead to greater support for environmental protection initiatives and foster a culture of conservation.

These many pros to using and having the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program in Michigan are paralleled by a few cons. First, there are volunteer limitations. While volunteer participation is a cornerstone of the CLMP, it also poses certain limitations. Volunteer citizen scientists may lack formal training in scientific methodologies, leading to potential variability or inconsistency in data collection practices. Ensuring data accuracy and reliability requires ongoing quality control measures and standardized protocols, which can be challenging to enforce across a diverse volunteer base.

Second, despite its extensive network of volunteers, the CLMP may still exhibit spatial and temporal coverage limitations. Monitoring efforts may be concentrated in areas with higher volunteer density or easier accessibility, leading to potential biases in data representation. Additionally, certain lakes or regions may be underrepresented in the monitoring program, resulting in gaps in our understanding of broader ecological patterns and trends.

Third, resource constraints. While the CLMP offers a cost-effective approach to lake monitoring, it still relies on government funding and support to sustain its operations. Budgetary constraints or fluctuations in funding levels can affect the program's ability to maintain equipment, provide training, and support volunteer activities effectively. Without adequate resources, the program may struggle to fulfill its objectives and meet the growing demand for lake monitoring services.

There is always the potential for data interpretations to be clouded. The sheer volume of data generated by the CLMP can present challenges in terms of analysis and interpretation. Processing and synthesizing large datasets require specialized expertise and analytical tools, which may not always be readily available. Furthermore, translating raw monitoring data into actionable management recommendations can be complex, particularly when dealing with multifaceted ecological issues influenced by numerous interacting factors.

The success of the CLMP hinges on the ongoing motivation and commitment of volunteer participants. Sustaining volunteer engagement over the long term can be challenging, especially when faced with competing priorities or changing demographics within local communities. Efforts to recruit and retain volunteers require continuous outreach, recognition, and support, which may strain program resources and staff capacity.

The Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program plays a vital role in safeguarding the ecological health of Michigan's inland lakes, leveraging the collective efforts of citizen scientists, communities and government agencies. While the program offers numerous benefits, including community engagement, cost-effective monitoring and early problem detection, it also faces certain challenges. Addressing these challenges will require ongoing collaboration, innovation and investment to ensure the continued success and sustainability of lake monitoring efforts in Michigan and beyond. By overcoming these obstacles, the CLMP can continue to serve as a model for effective citizen science-driven conservation initiatives, preserving the natural beauty and biodiversity of Michigan's cherished lakes for generations to come.

To learn more about CLMP and become a volunteer, check out micorps.net.