Anne Ingard: Fund the Lake Kanasatka Watershed Management Plan

To The Daily Sun,

We had our first massive cyanobacteria bloom on Lake Kanasatka last August. Other lakes in New Hampshire have had blooms at alarming rates and we have to ask ourselves if this problem will ultimately effect all our lakes if we don't act aggressively to slow down the factors that we have some control over – phosphorus loading being the most important.

William Smith PhD, an environmental scientist and retired Yale professor who served on the EPA's Science Advisory board for 20 years, wrote a report in 2014 describing potential sources of phosphorus loading on Kanasatka: fertilized lawns, leaking septics, Bay District septage lagoons, precipitation runoff from Route 25, and input from springs and streams feeding into the lake are all potential sources of phosphorus load.

Remediation will be very costly. The Watershed Management Plan will hopefully allow for additional funding through state and federal agencies but that process takes years. We don't have years to stop the blooms. Dr. Smith points out that many of these phosphorus loading factors are difficult to control at best, but we have to start somewhere. The Kanasatka Lake Watershed Association has funded the first phase of a watershed management plan. Water quality monitoring has been ongoing for many years by extremely dedicated, hard-working lake residents in cooperation with scientists at the DES and UNH. We are in great need of the support of Moultonborough residents at Town Meeting on May 15 to help fund the completion of the Watershed Management Plan and subsequent remediation. Our efforts to preserve the health of this small, beautiful Moultonborough Lake and the wildlife in and around it will bring knowledge and insights which can help all the lakes in NH that are threatened by blooms or, even better, to prevent them from occurring.

Nature is screaming at us. Cyanobacteria is just one of the environmental "canaries in the coal mine" that is an existential threat to our lakes and our own health. Its links to serious illness in humans and animals have been well established. To prevent future blooms in our lake, and maybe yours someday (Lake Kanasatka drains into Winni), it will not only require funding for watershed management plans but cooperation of all those living around lakes to lower the phosphorus load.

Please attend Town Meeting on May 15 (Saturday) and vote to support Warrant Article 14 to help fund the Lake Kanasatka Watershed Management Plan.

Anne Ingard

Moultonborough