Greetings from the Lake of the Ozarks! Caroline Toole, here, working with LOWA (Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance) and AmeriCorps (MO Clean Water AmeriCorps Program, hosted by MO River Communities Network (MRCN)), in service to our community!
As in January, February found LOWA hard at work finishing the Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Management Plan. A watershed management plan is a large document which describes a specific watershed area and issues affecting the water quality of its body of water. Then, the WMP (watershed management plan) describes ways to address the water body’s issues. LOWA calls their ways Strategies and has six groups. The first Strategy is called Education Outreach and Information and this Strategy calls for a multi-pronged approach through all kinds of media to reach all kinds of stakeholders. This will include writing articles for the newspapers and other local publications and getting on radio and TV to raise public awareness on watershed issues and how individuals, businesses, and communities all play a role in maintaining and improving the health and water quality of the watershed and the lake.
The second Strategy is the Runoff Strategy set, all aimed at reducing the amount of runoff reaching the lake, and includes cost-share incentive programs for developers and for home owners to install and maintain devices, such as rain gardens and vegetated buffer zones of beautiful native plants, to reduce the amount of runoff reaching the lake. The third Strategy encourages the use of riprap for shoreline stabilization instead of seawalls, and the fourth Strategy sets up programs for more monitoring around the coves and shoreline of LOZ (Lake of the Ozarks). A set of proposed ordinances for making low and no phosphorus fertilizers available in the lake area, bringing an end to the sunset law allowing some older septic systems to remain below modern standards, and to help establish a regional wastewater district across the four counties bordering LOZ make up the fifth set of Strategies.
The sixth set of Strategies is called Waste in the Lake and these Strategies are all about keeping bacteria and excess nutrients out of the lake. This set of Strategies establishes a Pump Out program to educate citizens about the link between maintaining your septic tank and keeping bacteria and excess nutrients out of the lake, a Pump Don’t Dump program to encourage boaters to pump out their boat’s holding tank at a pump station instead releasing the contents into the lake, and a program to raise awareness about wastewater disposal and long term proactive solutions to getting the many septic tanks off of the shores of the lake.
We all can hardly wait to begin implementing some of our grand scope ideas one step at a time. Watch for a pervious pavement demo soon!
Meetings to get the wastewater treatment ball rolling here at the lake also filled this AmeriCorps member’s schedule. At the top of the blog, the second picture shows EPA’s Joyce Hudson, Senior Environmental Engineer, Office of Wastewater Management on the left and AmeriCorps member Caroline Toole on the right, discussing wastewater issues at a conference organized by Missouri Smallflows Organization (MSO). The picture at the top shows (l to r) AmeriCorps member Caroline Toole, LOWA Wastewater Chair Jim Rogers, and Sen. Chuck Purguson at a LOWA meeting with the senator and Rep. Shad to discuss wastewater issues at the Lake of the Ozarks.
An online copy of LOWA's Watershed Management Plan for the Lake of the Ozarks, focusing on the Buck Creek and Lick Branch watersheds, can be viewed and downloaded at www.sosLOWA.org . The next LOWA public meeting will be April 19th at 6:30pm at Lodge of Four Seasons,in the Escolla room.
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