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The Adirondack Lake Assessment Program

To download the RCPA Adirondack Lake Assessment Program brochure in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, click here

To see recent press release (5/04) on the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program click here.

The Adirondack Lake Assessment Program is designed to build a network of trained, citizen volunteer water monitors across the Adirondack Park. Despite the importance of water across the Adirondacks, there are surprisingly few lakes with long-term scientific data on water quality conditions and trends in the Adirondack Park. In response to this need, the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks (RCPA) and the Adirondack Watershed Institute (AWI) at Paul Smiths College have teamed up to sponsor the Adirondack Lake Assessment Project (ALAP). The ALAP was launched six years ago with the intention of mobilizing volunteers across the Adirondacks to gather baseline water quality data on lakes they care about. Only through long-term data can we evaluate overall water quality trends across the Adirondack Park.

The ALAP had over 60 lakes and ponds enrolled in 2004. See the map below for a list of the participating lakes. How to get involved? It's simple. The first thing you need to do is select a lake for monthly sampling for a minimum 3-month season (June–August) or a 5-month season (May–September). Monitoring takes about one hour per month depending on the time it takes to boat to the deepest part of the lake selected. Monitoring must take place at roughly the same point each month. The second consideration is a sponsoring organization, which can be a lake association, club or organization, collection of families, business, one family, or an individual. All types of different arrangements work. The third thing to consider is the cost. In 2004, the cost was $100 for a 3-month season, $160 for a 5-month season. These are annual costs and cover the laboratory analysis of the water samples and data processing. Monitoring equipment costs $250, which is a one time cost. The RCPA makes a limited number of sets of equipment free each season for lakes that enroll for aminimum of five years. Last, volunteers are trained in May–June of each year, and are generally accompanied on their first sampling effort with a trained intern from AWI.

The goals of the ALAP are twofold. First, to gather useful, scientifically valid information on a particular lake or pond to inform those associated with this water body about its overall condition and trends. Groups or individuals can use this information for long-term planning for a healthy lake or pond. Second, to establish a profile of water quality conditions and trends across the Adirondack Park. As mentioned above, despite the importance of water in the Adirondacks to the local economy, character of our communities, quality of life, and the environment, we know very little about most of the lakes and ponds in the Adirondacks.

There is a strong body of information about the validity of scientific sampling by trained volunteers. All samples are analyzed at the AWI laboratory. The parameters studied are phosphorus, chlorophyll-a, pH, dissolved oxygen, transparency, among others. These are not parameters that measure the overall acidity of a water body (that is one area where we do not have good long term data in the Adirondacks), but were selected to help assess the overall health of a lake as it functions and is affected by near-shore human activities and to evaluate how fast a water body is aging. Anyone interested in enrolling a lake in the ALAP in 2004, should contact the RCPA office at (518) 251-4257 or by email at RCPA@frontiernet.net. For more information about the ALAP, click here to download the ALAP brochure.

Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks
P.O. Box 27, Ordway Lane, North Creek, NY 12853-0027
Phone (518) 251-4257
Fax (518) 251-5068
email: rcpa@frontiernet.net

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