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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
Article Summaries |
The Colby Advantageby Esther J. Perne
In a state where most lake monitoring is undertaken by volunteers, to have a college, university, or high school environmental studies or science program involved with studying the watershed is a tremendous asset. To have Colby College in Waterville conducting research and helping determine the influences and causes of water quality conditions and changes is valuable beyond measure. Since the early nineties, there has been a Colby College-Belgrade Lakes connection that is more than a win-win relationship. The seven lakes of the Belgrades chain benefit from hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for research and testing, and of professorial expertise, that they in no way could afford to buy. And the Colby professors and students have, almost within view of the campus, a watershed where the lakes are similar but different and where each imparts its own influence on the same water flow. They also have an appreciative and supportive audience among the many property owners, vacationers and lake users who have a vested emotional or financial interest in this unique and beautiful region. Initially Colby's Biology Department, under the direction of Professor David Firmage, conducted studies on all the individual lake watersheds of the Belgrades as part of a course model. The resulting presentations, comprehensive reports, and study updates have served as overall informational and directional guidelines for conservation activity by the lakes associations, the Conservation Corps, and the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance.
For Professor Whitney King, who is an analytical environmental chemist with a background in chemical oceanography, the Belgrades liaison began with the writing of a National Science Foundation grant for $100,000 to investigate the geochemistry of Great Pond. Known professionally throughout the world for developing highly specialized testing instruments that are sold through his company, Waterville Analytical, King had conceived the grant project while using a friend's pontoon boat to test hydrogen peroxide in Great Pond. Co-author of the grant was Professor Jen Shosa from the Geology Department, a hydrothermacist, who is highly instrumental in studies of the Belgrades groundwater and under-the-lake studies. Their grant proposal, a floating laboratory that can hold ten students at a time, was approved and funded the unique Colby Compass pontoon boat that now plies the Belgrade lakes. Among other state-of-the-art water-testing equipment is a coring device that can bore thirty feet below the bottom of the lake and a heavy crane to raise the core of bottom soil. The Colby Compass was first put into service on East Pond where a highly dedicated lake association is committed to find out why there have been annual algae blooms the last few seasons and what can be done to prevent them. At the invitation of Remediation Chairperson Jerry Tipper, the Chemistry and Geology Departments set up "lab" on this headwater lake, complementing but not collaborating with the Biology Department. "The biologists were doing their thing, and we were doing our thing," King points out; they all were and still are making significant contributions to the pond that is on the leading edge of assessing and seeking means to solve its water quality concerns.
Gloeotrichia was the catalyst for a collaboration between the biology and chemistry departments. At the request of Roy Bouchard of the State Department of Environmental Protection, Professors King and Firmage agreed to jointly study this blue-green algae that has appeared in Great, Long and Messalonskee Ponds, in increasing intensity the past three summers. The project began in March when they sat down with Belgrade Lakes Association President Bruce Fenn, who set up a budget and has subsequently set up an impressive network of volunteers to measure Gloeotrichia in Great and Long Ponds. Professor King also hired former student Doug LaLiberty in March to do a complete literature review on Gloeotrichia. "We went into the field well prepared," he states. At the 2005 Belgrade Lakes Association (Great and Long Ponds) Annual Meeting, Dr. Whitney King was the guest speaker on the 2005 Gloeotrichia Research Project. Armed with depth maps of the lakes, a detailed explanation of the Gloeotrichia life cycle, and examples of volunteer monitoring devices, Professor King reviewed what Colby is doing. Fieldwork includes a weather station on Hoyt's Island, water column sampling, traps to catch and count Gloeotrichia, and the measuring of oxygen and fluorescence.
"We're starting to look at the data," he explained. "We have a base." There are no answers or a solution; Colby will be on the lakes for a long time. Academically, the Colby goal is succinct. "We want to publish a paper on the life cycle of Gloeotrichia in the Northeast," stated King in a private interview. There are not a lot of resources nationally for limnology, he explains. Some research has been done in Scandinavia, some in the northwest. There are other lakes in Maine, and at least one in New Hampshire, that have this form of algae. In fact, toxicity tests for the Gloeotrichia in the Belgrades is currently being done at the University of New Hampshire and results should be available in October. If Colby's goals are scholarly, they also align with the college's community outreach philosophy, and with its appealing location. Colby-owned lake property for recreation is part of the college's attractiveness to students and professors. Professor King is a good example. Lake studies aside, he goes with his family to the Colby-Hume Center on Lake Messalonskee all the time | ||||
