“The water seems to be clear and the fish tastes a lot better out of this lake than most lakes,” said Snyder.
Clearer water is a good sign. Clarity is one of the parameters the EPA examines.
They use a tool called a Secchi dish. It’s simply a black and white dish attached to a string. Environmental specialists lower the dish into the water and see how far down it can go before they can’t see it anymore.
“The lower we can go, the clearer and less turbid the water is,” said Linda Merchant-Masonbrink, environmental specialist and Inland Lakes Monitoring Program coordinator with the Ohio EPA.
If the water is more turbid, it could mean more sediment, or more algae.
The EPA takes samples to determine the water’s chemistry. If the water is made up of more nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, they know to look for algae.
These nutrients would run into the lake from surrounding farms. Algae feed on dissolved phosphorus. That’s why high phosphorus levels can mean an overabundance of algae.
“Algae blooms will cause a drop in dissolved oxygen,” said Merchant-Masonbrink. “That will affect the fish and can sometimes cause fish die-off.”
That’s what happened at Grand Lake St. Marys in Mercer County.
Curtis Shoe of De Graff said he wouldn’t be surprised if the EPA found abundant algae at Kiser Lake too.
“There’s a lot of farms around,” said Shoe. “There could be some runoff from the farms and stuff. They’ll let us know. I’m not too concerned.”
The Ohio EPA said people shouldn’t be concerned about Kiser Lake’s health. The sampling is just a routine check.
So far, they said Kiser Lake looks healthier than Grand Lake St. Marys.
The complete report on the EPA’s findings at Kiser Lake won’t be out until 2012, but they said they’ll let the public know as soon as they find if there’s any need for concern.