CLARIONA PUBLICATION OF THE COLORADO LAKE AND RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

APRIL 2005 www.CLRMA.org PO BOX 260214 HIGHLANDS RANCH, COLORADO 80163

22000055 CCLLRRMMAA CCOONNFFEERREENNCCEESS

By Sharon Campbell: CLRMA will have 3 major events in 2005. The first is the upcoming Spring Luncheon at Thornton's Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center on Tuesday, April 12, 2005. The registration form is included in this issue of the Clarion. Please join us for 3 speakers on Volunteer Monitoring. As you know, CLRMA is starting the Colorado Volunteer Monitoring program, headed by Steve Lundt, our immediate Past-President, who will combine the spring luncheon with training for our new volunteers. Please join us on April 12th to learn more about this exciting new CLRMA venture! The luncheon is free for volunteers who attend the training.

Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center

The second activity is Lakes Appreciation month in July, 2005 at Grand Lake. Steve Lundt and Sarah Clements are taking the lead on this and you will find more information elsewhere in this issue of the Clarion. Finally, our 9th Fall conference is scheduled for October 12, 2005. We plan to have a full day of presentations, lunch, and our annual business meeting. The location for this fall hasn't been selected as yet. If you have a suggested venue for our fall conference (keep in mind we like places without rental fees) please let a CLRMA officer or Board member know. More information on the fall conference will be included in upcoming Clarion issues. Please keep in mind the 2006 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference (RMRC) from February 22-24th. Although it's a year away, it is time to begin planning this event. NALMS requires a proposal that must be approved by the NALMS Board at its upcoming meeting in Chicago at the end of April, 2005. With last years successful RMRC, we expect NALMS to approve the 2006 RMRC proposal.

Where you will be on July 17th

LAKES APPRECIATION MONTH, JULY 2005 GRAND LAKE, COLORADO

Grand Lake, “Lake Tahoe” of Colorado – largest and deepest natural lake in Colorado, will be the main site of this year’s Lakes Appreciation Month celebrations for Colorado. Make your reservations now for this big event. The annual Buffalo Barbecue and Western Weekend is a popular event (July 16-17) and with the extra interest in Lakes Appreciation Month, accommodations are sure to fill up fast. The event details are still being finalized, but there will be some great boat tours on Grand Lake, including the water quality tour where the mayor of Grand Lake will take the official Secchi depth reading for the July celebrations. Other activities include: storm drain stenciling, children activities, 5 K run, great food, self-guided boat tours, and much more. Make sure you come for both days to enjoy all of the fun activities. For more information go to: www.clrma.org www.grandlakecolorado.comwww.grandlakechamber.com

CLRMA ON THE WATER (C.O.W.) – 2005 By Steve Lundt CLRMA, for the second year in a row (no pun intended), will again organize informal boat outings during the summer months. Again, the purpose is to just give you an excuse to take your family and hopefully a boat out and enjoy a lake. The scheduled C.O.W. outings will be the last Saturday of each month June through September, shoving off at 10:00 am. Milton Reservoir (a.k.a Pelican Lake) will be the site of our June outing. Meet at 10:00 am by the boat ramp on Saturday June 25th if you would like to see this high plains reservoir near Platteville, Colorado.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN NALMS Madison Wisconsin will be the site of the 25th annual NALMS symposium. The call for papers is out and we need your abstracts. Papers must be submitted by June 10, 2005 and may be submitted electronically via the NALMS web site at www.nalms.org . Mark your calendar now and plan to attend our 25th Anniversary NALMS Symposium at the beautiful Monona Terrace, on Lake Monona, in Madison from November 9-11, 2005.

SPOTLIGHT ON…. Sarah Clements Age: 29 going on 44 Yrs with CLRMA/NALMS: off and on for five years. Yrs in CO: Born and raised What do you do: I coordinate water quality monitoring and maintain a database in Grand County as the Executive Director of the newly formed Grand County Water Information Network (GCWIN). Family: A husband and dog for now. When I’m not working I am…volunteer ski patrolling or playing my fiddle. Your idea of happiness: Sounds corny, but living in Grand County. Not many people know that… I once played my fiddle for the King of Norway. What do I like to do most: Anything that makes me laugh. If I won the lottery: I’d travel more. Last book I read: The Trans-Siberian Railway. I’d love to take snow samples from Sweden to Siberia. What political office: I’ll stick to science over politics. Toughest aspect of my job: As a scientist, sticking to the science and staying out of local politics. It can be done, but it is hard. What famous person would you like to meet most: If they were still alive, I liked to meet Albert Einstein or Madam Marie Curie. Living, I’d like to meet Linus Pauling.

What’s Happening in NALMS Keep Up to Speed with Lake Issues NALMS now provides a timely electronic newsletter that keeps you updated on NALMS events and important lake topics. To subscribe to the e-newsletter, go to www.nalms.org/newsletter and sign up.

RMRC – 2006 It’s never too early to mark you calendar for an upcoming event. Thus, please put the Second Rocky Mountain Regional Conference on your calendar for February 2006. Once again, the conference will be hosted here in Denver. More information will follow in upcoming issues of the CLARION, but for now keep your excitement under control and get your pen ready to submit a paper. If you would like to help with the planning of this event, please contact Sharon Campbell (970-226-9331).

WE STILL HAVE AD SPACE AVAILABLE FOR ORGINZATIONS. FOR MORE INFORMATION: travis.bray@denverwater.org (303) 628-6551

REGISTRATION FOR THE CLRMA SPRING LUNCHEON

Speakers: Barb Horn, CDOW; Jeffrey Boring, BTWF; Steve Lundt,

MWRD Topic: Volunteer Monitoring - see program on the back of this form. Place: Thornton's Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center, 11151

Colorado Blvd., Thornton, CO. (Southwest corner of the intersection of 112th Ave. and Colorado Blvd.) See map on the back of this form.

Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 Time: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Cost: $20.00 per person (lunch included) Name: _________________________________ Affiliation: ______________________________ Address: ________________________________ ________________________________ Phone: ______________ FAX: ____________________ Email: __________________________

Please check here if new information. NALMS LakeLine Subscription, $25/yr

____________________________________________________ Please send registration form and checks to: CLRMA, P. O. Box 260214, Highlands Ranch, CO 80163-0144 or FAX to: 303-628-6852, Attn: Travis Bray Visa or MasterCard : ___________________________ Expiration: ___________________________ Signature: ___________________________

CLRMA Spring Luncheon - April 12, 2005 - Program 11:00 - 11:30 am Registration and Meet and Greet 11:30 - 11:45 am Lunch Service 11:45 am - 1:00 pm Speakers (20 minutes each +5 minutes Q&A) "Volunteer Monitoring and How it will Help your Lake or Reservoir", Barb Horn, Biologist, Colorado Division of Wildlife, 151 E. 16th Ave., Durango, CO 81301, v: 970/382-6667. "The Big Thompson Watershed Forum's Collaborative Water Monitoring Program", Jeffrey Boring, Monitoring Program Manager, Big Thompson Watershed Forum, 800 South Taft Avenue, Loveland, CO 80537, v: 970-613-6163. "Statewide Volunteer Lake Monitoring: Adding Colorado to the List", Steve Lundt, Water Quality Specialist, Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, v: 303-286-3272 1:00 - 1:30 pm Volunteer Monitoring Training - Steve Lundt MAP

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By Steven Veatch: Ute Lake is a man-made, main channel, cold water impoundment located on Rule Creek approximately six miles north of Divide, Colorado. The lake has been estimated to be six surface acres. Siltation and succession has slowly reduced the surface area of the lake. South Dakota Lakes and Streams recently worked on silt removal on the south end of the lake. The lake, at 8,760 feet in elevation, is 492.26 yards in length and has a maximum width of 59.41 yards. The maximum depth is 28 feet. This reservoir impounds approximately 62.5 acre feet of storage or 20.4 million gallons of water.

Ute Lake, north of Pikes Peak is excellent habitat for rainbow, cutthroat, brook, and brown trout. Photo by T. Hansch.

Inlet flows are calculated to be 0.15 cubic feet per second, or 67.5 gallons per minute. Outlet flows are calculated to be 0.55 cubic feet per second or 247.5 gallons per minute. The difference between these two numbers can be assumed to be the amount of water entering the lake from subsurface springs, presently yielding 0.4 cubic feet per second or 180 gallons per minute. The calculated exchange rate of the lake (time it takes for fresh water to completely replace all water in the lake) is based on the inlet flow and is once every 57 days or six times per year.

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The area where Ute Lake is located was once part of the Cripple Creek gold rush. Prospectors were attracted to a number of areas around the Cripple Creek Mining District, including the area around the town of Divide, Colorado. In 1896, the Pikes Peak Mining District was organized at the Divide schoolhouse. A mining patent for the Ute Lake property, dated November 15, 1909, was issued to Arnold J. Bechbell. Although the land around Ute Lake has a number of old prospect holes, no ore of any kind was ever discovered.

The Rule Creek Investment Company, owned by H.J. Gehm, later came into possession of the property. On June 29, 1926, Mr. Gehm, who lived in Cripple Creek, filed a map and specifications for a proposed Rule Creek Reservoir at the Teller County Courthouse. Mr. Gehm did not proceed with construction of the dam. J.W. Barron became the owner on August 10, 1939 and filed a plat of the Ute Lakes Club. Mr. Barron formed the Ute Lake’s Fishing and Recreation Club and sold lots. Sales of the lots were slow because there was no lake, only small ponds which had been built by Mr. Gehm. In 1939 Mr. Barron contacted the San-Orr Construction Company of Kansas to begin construction of the Ute Lake dam. The dam was completed in 1941.

Today the Ute Lake’s Fishing and Recreation Club, Inc. owns approximately 243 acres of land, one lake, and a number of fishing ponds along Rule Creek. There are 40 members of the club who own individual lots and cabins. Club members elect a board to manage the natural assets of this private fishing club. The board also manages the day-to-day affairs of the fishing club. Steven Veatch, a member of the CLRMA, has been president of the club for 15 years.

Construction of the earthen dam on Rule Creek began in 1939.

The fishing club lies on the northern flank of Pikes Peak, and is underlain by Precambrian Pikes Peak Granite. Barren outcrops of Pikes Peak granite support fern, lichen and moss communities. Tertiary extrusive volcanic has been documented on the property, and several inactive faults trend north to south through the club. Ute Lake is surrounded by a mixed coniferous and aspen forest. Trees include Douglas fir, Englemann spruce, Colorado blue spruce, common juniper, and ponderosa pine. There are several wetland areas on club property. Blue columbine, monkshood, bluebells, and harebell are common plants. A variety of animals make their home at Ute Lake, including: horned owls, great blue herons, elk, mule deer, black bears, coyotes, porcupines, cottontails, beavers, and muskrats.

A great blue heron is seen perched on granite rocks at the lower end of Ute Lake. Photo by S. Veatch.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE US TO FEATURE YOUR LAKE OR RESERVOIR, PLEASE CONTACT TRAVIS BRAY AT travis.bray@denverwater.org.

WEST SIDE STORY By Sarah Clements As I write, the snowmobiles and skiers are still active in Grand County; and spring is still a promising vision in the crisp cold wind. Meanwhile, the first daffodils and tulips are blooming along the Front Range; and winter is more a memory than reality. Preparations are being made in the Town of Grand Lake for this summer’s up-coming Lake Appreciation Month in July. This year, the main celebration in Grand Lake will take place as part of Western Weekend, July 16-17. The Mayor of Grand Lake will help kick-off the celebration by taking the Official Grand Lake Secchi Disk reading for the Great North American Secchi Dip-In. Most of the CLRMA activities will be along the public beach and docks. We’ll have boats, canoes, and a pontoon available for Limnology 101, tours, and possibly some volunteer lake training. Grills for hot dogs and hamburgers are available on-site, as well as a snack bar (complete with ice cream) across the street. Lots of activities for adults and kids are being scheduled.

In addition to the CLRMA booth and activities down by the lake, CLRMA will be visible throughout the Western Weekend activities. CLRMA plans to help sponsor the T-shirts for the Saturday Buffalo BBQ 5K run and Rotary Club Pancake Breakfast. Other Western Weekend activities include a street dance Saturday night, the Sunday parade (a possible CLRMA float?), and of course, the Buffalo BBQ lunch on Sunday. Come join the fun, do a little dancing, and be in the parade!

Helping the CLRMA Members will be local members of the Three Lakes Watershed Association and the Grand Lake Shoreline Association. Canton O’Donnell, of the Three Lakes Watershed Association, is one of CLRMA’s newest Board Members. The Grand Lake Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, the Grand Lake Metropolitan Recreation District, the Town of Grand Lake, and Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District will all help CLRMA contribute to the success of the Lake Appreciation Weekend Events in Grand Lake. The variety of activities is sure to keep folks talking about Lake Appreciation Month for weeks to come. Mark your calendar today for Lake Appreciation Month and Western Weekend in Grand Lake!

CLRMA WANTS YOU! 303-286-3272

VOLUNTEER LAKE MONITORING TRAINING – APRIL 12TH If you have signed up to be a volunteer or are interested in volunteering to monitor a lake or reservoir, then you will need to be trained. The first and best option for training is at the Spring Luncheon on April 12th from 11:00 to 1:00 at the Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center in Thornton. It is vital that all volunteers attend this 30-minute training workshop, which will be held after the luncheon. The quality and usability of the volunteer data depends on how well the volunteers are trained. Volunteers will learn how to consistently take a Secchi depth reading, how to properly send in all the information that is collected, and will be given their volunteer monitoring kit that will contain all the necessary monitoring equipment. If you cannot attend the training, please contact Steve Lundt at slundt@mwrd.dst.co.us or call 303-286-3272 to arrange another time to be trained, via phone or in person.

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EDITORIAL By Steve Lundt: Please send in your editorials. All of you are probably getting tired of reading what I have to say. I know I am! Last time it was about the mighty carp. I guess most everyone dislikes those detritivores as much as I do since we did not get any threatening comments back. Here are a couple of topics that might get your pelagic zone stirring though. Rain barrels and white socks, what do they have do with lakes and reservoirs? The two Colorado laws that seem to bother me the most are: the illegalness of rain barrels and the lack of a law for minimizing phosphorus in soaps and detergents.

Rain Barrels – I don’t want to even pretend to understand the water laws in Colorado but this one seems to be a little bit outdated. Rain barrels are encouraged in all the other arid western states but Colorado. I am a proud owner of six homemade rain barrels that saved me 3,300 gallons of water last year. I understand that water quantity is a sensitive topic in Colorado, but it is not like I am taking my full 55-gallon barrels up to Wyoming to sell. I’m simply time-releasing the same amount of water on my property to help conserve drinking water and keep my plants alive. The water still goes downstream to the next rightful water owner. In fact, Coloradoans should be encourage and even compensated to use rain barrels. Rain barrels help reduce the use of expensive, processed drinking water on our lawns and gardens. This reduction means more water in our reservoirs and for the users downstream. Also, stored gutter water released slowly over time (instead of that flashy, urban stormwater event that quickly flushes by all the downstream water users) can provide a more reliable shallow groundwater recharge and help with a more steady base flow in the streams. Who knows, maybe the next drought won’t be as bad for the storage reservoirs if we all had a rain barrel under our gutter spout.

Phosphorus in soaps and detergents – There probably is some kind of corporate back-scratching going on between phosphorus mine corporations and detergent corporations. What else could explain this strong resistance for the past 30 years to eliminate unnecessary phosphorus from our daily lives? There are over 30 states that have some kind of a statewide detergent phosphorus ban or limitation in the books, some as early as the 1970’s. Colorado is not one of them. Yes, phosphorus levels are lower in our detergents because of other state’s phosphorus bans and the chemical replacements to replace the phosphorus seem to have their own environmental downfalls, but I still think we need to eliminate phosphorus in domestic soap and detergent products. If we can send a remote control car to Mars, we can mass-produce profitable (because that is the bottom line), safe, non-phosphorus soaps.

LIMNO 101 – THERMAL STRATIFICATION IN LAKES By Chris Knud-Hansen Most people first learn of thermal stratification in lakes with that first memorable jump from a boat during a hot summer afternoon. There is the rude realization that those nice and warm surface waters that sooth the toes are overlying a bone-chilling environment. Well, that is because the lake is thermally stratified, and in this Limno 101 piece we look at why it happens. In the next installment we will examine how thermal stratification affects lake ecology. Appreciating the relationship between water temperature and water density is a key in understanding thermal stratification. Fresh water is most dense at about 4°C, and becomes less dense as water gets both warmer and cooler. As water temperatures increase from 4°C, water densities decrease, but in a non-linear fashion with greater differences in densities found at higher water temperatures. For example, the density difference between 25-30°C is over five times the density difference of water between 5-10°C. So warm, shallow lakes can be thermally stratified even with a relatively small temperature gradient. Water also becomes less dense as temperatures decrease from 4°C down to 0°C, which helps explain why ponds do not freeze from the bottom up. However, the density gradient between 0-4°C is relatively small, less than one half the density difference of water between 5-10°C.

So, how does this unique property of water manifest itself in lakes? During the winter, most lakes in Colorado are ice covered. This ice cover prevents any wind mixing of water under the ice, allowing lakes to become thermally stratified with surface waters at 0°C “floating” over increasingly more dense waters down to 4°C at the lake bottom. When the ice thaws in the spring, it requires very little wind energy to mix the entire water column. As spring progresses, solar radiation warms up surface waters during the day. The cold spring nights, however, cool down the top

surface layer causing it to sink to the bottom. This nighttime mixing of surface waters warmed during the day causes the whole lake to gradually warm up. By late spring, nights are sufficiently warm that nighttime cooling does not mix the entire lake. As surface waters get progressively warmer, wind mixing is only effective part way down the water column. This establishes a mid-depth layer of water with a strong temperature/density gradient (i.e., the metalimnion, with depth/stratum of maximum temperature gradient called the thermocline). Relatively warm surface waters (i.e., the epilimnion) now float on top of colder and denser bottom waters (i.e., the hypolimnion), separated by the metalimnion/thermocline. Because lake warming through solar infra-red light absorption occurs in the top 1-2 meters, even in relatively clear lakes, typically the greater the fetch, the more wind energy for mixing and the deeper the summer thermocline will be. On the other hand, hot calm days can produce a temporary but shallower thermocline within the epilimnion. In deeper lakes, the epilimnion remains hydraulically isolated from the hypolimnion until the fall, when that first really cold evening cools surface waters sufficiently so they drop to the bottom of the lake. This event mixes the lake completely and is known as the fall turnover. As fall goes into winter, the water column continues to be well mixed with progressively colder temperatures until ice forms once again on the lake surface. (Continued next page)

2005 CLRMA BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chris Knud-Hansen President 303-469-9606 chris@solarbee.com Steve Lundt Past-President 303-286-3272 slundt@mwrd.dst.co.us Sharon Campbell President-Elect 970-226-9331 sharon_g_campbell@usgs.gov Kelly Close Secretary 303-443-7839 kkc@hydrosphere.com Travis Bray Treasurer 303-628-6551 travis.bray@denverwater.org Joni Nuttle Director 303-692-3533 joni.nuttle@state.co.us Kevin Urie Director 303-628-5987 kevin.urie@denverwater.org Sarah Clements West Slope Director 970-887-9429 sarahclements@rkymtnhi.com Randy Giffin Director 303-739-6770 rgiffin@ci.aurora.co.us Canton O’Donnell Director 303-722-5610 gletwo@aol.com Jean Marie Boyer NALMS Reg 8 Dir. 303-443-7839 jmb@hydrosphere.com

(Thermal Stratification continued) Colorado lakes are typically dimictic, meaning that they mix twice a year (spring and fall) with summer and winter stratification in between. Lakes that are not ice covered are monomictic, mixing only once per year (continually from fall turnover until stratification sets up in late spring). Relatively shallow lakes with sufficient wind exposure may be polymictic, meaning that they mix more than twice a year. The additional mixing events typically occur during the summer, when the lake would otherwise be stratified. For example, many of the shallow plains lakes will mix top to bottom during the summer with a good thunderstorm, then stratify again the next day and remain so until the next major storm event. So, the next time you jump into a lake feel the temperature difference, and be thankful that warm water floats!

PRESIDENT’S DOCK: CHRIS KNUD-HANSEN We often define water bodies based on their location and morphology, such as crater lakes, river impoundments, prairie potholes, oxbow lakes, and mountain cirque lakes. We also define bodies of water by what they provide for us. For example, we have drinking water reservoirs, fishing holes, swim beaches, power plant cooling lakes, flood control reservoirs, recreational lakes, and aquaculture ponds. But form and function do not really describe the true beauty and dynamic nature of lakes and reservoirs.

When you look beneath the surface you find an environment teeming with activity. There are billions of microscopic plants creating food for billions of microscopic animals, both of which provide food for larger invertebrates, fish, amphibians, birds, etc. The diversity of organisms is incredible. Natural selection over the last billion years or so has created diverse speciation at all trophic levels … selecting for competitive advantages for food acquisition, while evolving defenses against inadvertently becoming food. Climate, watershed geomorphology and activities, and seasonal weather patterns are among the “outside” influences that also affect the dynamics of lake ecosystems. As we move into spring, biological activity within and around lakes is picking up steam. Now is a good time to pause by a lakeshore or a stream bank and get a closer appreciation of life beneath the surface. Look under a rock for insect larvae, check out green and brown filamentous algal communities on top of rocks, look at the water color created by suspended microscopic organisms, and observe how the water moves … use your senses to see, feel, smell, and even hear (but not taste) the life around you. No tender sensibilities, just a better awareness of the world that begins at the waters’ edge. And possibly, this Thoreau-esque experience just may alter the way you perceive the word “management” in CLRMA’s name and mission.