Water quality position expanded

MAT-SU -- Mat-Su water bodies will get a little more attention as a result of the borough assembly's recent decision to expand the watershed coordinator position.

Although the expansion is mostly a housekeeping measure -- Borough Manager John Duffy said it was to have taken place when the new budget was implemented but the position was inadvertently mislabeled -- the move signifies a change in the course of watershed monitoring in the borough.

Lynn Fuller has worked as the borough's watershed coordinator for the past two monitoring seasons, which typically run through the summer. Between 20 and 25 lakes are monitored each year, she said, by between 25 and 30 volunteers. Like many water monitoring programs, there were several needs when Fuller came on board, and she and the volunteers have worked to fill those voids, increasing consistency, improving quality control issues and generally working to make the program more effective. With more volunteers and more work being done, having someone on hand only through a portion of the year simply wasn't doing the job. Fuller's position was seasonal, meaning it had to be renewed every time she reached 700 hours. The change from a part-time seasonal to part-time permanent position primarily corrects the need to renew Fuller's contract, but it goes beyond that.

"It provides continuity in the water quality program," Duffy said. "In addition to that, now we'll have someone here throughout the year to deal with water quality issues."

Some of those issues relate to how development affects watershed quality, and how communities can plan for a healthy watershed.

"A lake monitoring program is really integral to some planning issues in the borough," Fuller said. A good lake monitoring program, she said, should look not only at assessment of the water body, but education and outreach to help the surrounding community understand the health of their lake and management practices that will keep it that way. The borough has mailed out information pertaining to lake health to property owners surrounding some lakes that have been monitored previously, and that's a practice Fuller said she'd like to expand on. She welcomed the chance to speak to neighborhood groups or send out information to people interested in good lake management practices.

Fuller has already been able to move beyond coordinating the monitoring program -- she worked with the Meadow Lakes Community Council's team working on a comprehensive plan to help them understand what to look for when integrating watershed quality into their community planning efforts.

"It's a very proactive approach," Fuller said. "The hard thing about monitoring is, it takes a long time to impact a lake or impair a lake. But when you do … it's an exponential process."

It may take a long time for non-point source pollution or other factors to create effects on a lake that are easily identifiable, such as a strange smell or an algae bloom, Fuller said. But once those things take hold, it doesn't take long before the rest of the lake is in danger. Looking at the overall health of the borough's lake system will be a big part of what Fuller will do with the added time.

"When you do any king of monitoring, whether it's a lake or a stream, there's a natural inclination to look sort of outward to the watershed," Fuller said. "Partly, my position will be to look at where our neighborhood lakes are now."