| ||||
Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing Article Summaries |
Remediation For Those Growing Green Globules?
By Esther J. Perne As the Belgrade Lakes Association Board of Directors prepares for the group's 98th Annual Meeting on Sunday, August 13, 1-3 p.m. at the Belgrade Central School, one woman's research may be the motivation for the remediation of Great and Long Pond's bubble like Gloeotrichia, a blue-green algae that is really a bacteria. Following a year of intensive research, Great Pond summer resident since 1964 (and 8th generation by marriage!), Sarah Melvin, has made a proposal to the BLA Board to consider Gloeotrichia remediation utilizing ultrasound. Beginning as a monitor for BLA's The Green Team and collecting Gloeotrichia samples during the summer of 2005, Melvin turned her winter mission into reading any and all written documentation concerning Gloeotrichia. This summer she is back on the lake for six months with collection bottles, computer, camera and microscope, studying samples, including some she took last year, and tracking daily, sometimes hourly, the Gloeotrichia in front of her property at the north end of Great Pond — an area, coincidentally, where concentrations are the greatest on the lake. Melvin's proposal for ultrasound, which can destroy bacteria, comes from her background of exploring bacteria in the medical field. 
For the BLA, the Gloeotrichia countdown began five years ago, when tiny tapioca-like balls (Gloeotrichia) started appearing noticeably in the otherwise clear water of Great and Long Ponds. Two years ago, following a visible proliferation of the globules, Colby College was contacted to conduct an in-depth study of Gloeotrichia. Under the direction of Dr. Whitney King, Head of the Chemistry Department, a comprehensive study was set up, starting with a complete literature review and focusing on field work on Great Pond that included a weather station on Hoyt's Island, water column sampling, traps to catch and count Gloeotrichia, and the measuring of oxygen and fluorescence.
So important was this baseline study that last summer the BLA departed from its normal short-report format to invite Dr. King to be guest speaker at the 2005 Annual Meeting. 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 was doing in 2005 — and continues to do this season. Colby's goal is to publish a paper on the life cycle of Gloeotrichia in the Northeast, a breakthrough in the scientific world where only one woman in Sweden and one woman graduate student at Dartmouth are dedicated to such studies. Melvin, on the other hand, is looking at what is going on here and now and cataloging what she can see above and beyond Gloeotrichia, such as the reaction to barometric changes in containers and in the lake, what they look like after a year, and their connection to the lakes' deep holes. Her work dovetails with Colby's research yet raises the idea of going beyond the baseline. Her proposal to move toward remediation is a wake-up call to BLA, whose remediation goals are to determine a control both non-chemical and permit-able.
Ultrasound may not be the answer, Melvin points out, but it is a plan that has been used on ponds and small lakes. It at least merits consideration or a test situation. Other considerations for remediation include a tremendous need for a larger information base statewide, and New England wide. What other lakes have or have had Gloeotrichia and what are their experiences? There also is a need for more local networking and anecdotal observations both historic and current. One way to enhance the Belgrades information chain would be for more people to join the BLA, volunteer, or donate money. For more information about Gloeotrichia visit the Gloeotrichia section of the Belgrade Lake Association's web site. *Photos ©2006 by Sarah Melvin | |||
