Wednesday, August 13, 2025
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Vol. 55, No. 7
Milford (574) 658-4111 • Warsaw (574) 269-2932 • Syracuse (574) 457-3666
114 W. Market, Warsaw, Indiana 46580
COUNTING ALGAE — Hallie Arnold, team lead of the research lab for Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, counts algae and bacteria on a slide. The lab receives samples from 16 lakes and several public beaches. The algae specimens are preserved so a count can done.
BRINGING THE LAKES TO LIBRARIES AND CLASSROOMS — Emily Anderson, education coordinator for The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, shows off several, 40 gallon- aquariums that will soon be returned to school libraries and classrooms. The aquariums have fish and fauna found in lakes around Kosciusko County. Text and Photos By LAUREN ZEUGNER Staff Writer When it comes to preserving Kosciusko County’s lakes for future generations, the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams takes a three-pronged approach: research, education and collaboration. One of the issues the center looks at is algae blooms. Dr. Nate Bosch explained it will be hard to tell until the end of summer whether algae was an issue on the 16 lakes the center looks at. Algae gets more noticeable when the weather is warmer and the water more stagnant. Bosch explained algae levels tend to go up during the summer reaching a peak in July and August. However, this year the area has had a drier spring, with April and May having half the precipitation than last year. The lakes have also had cooler water temperatures, as much as 8 degrees cooler than last year. This means with less rainfall, less nutrients are flowing into the lakes; however, by the Fourth of July, the algae levels began to look more typical. Bosch said there is still education and implementation work still to be done regarding nutrients flowing into the lake. The culprit is too much phosphorus, which makes algae and weeds grow in the lakes. In order to implement solutions, the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams is working on where the nutrients are coming from, such as lakes and agricultural properties. Bosch explained the center is working on educating the public on the problem and how to put solutions into practice. For example, lakefront owners are being encouraged to plant native species along
the shoreline, which will help filter out phosphorus and prevent erosion. Lakefront owners are also encouraged to use fertilizer with no phosphorus in it “They can still have a healthy green lawn,” Bosch said. One other way to prevent phosphorus from getting into the lake is to keep yard waste out of the lake and storm sewers. Those with commercial property in the watershed, such as golf courses, can also implement these practices. Bosch said he is seeing more interest in native plants being used in landscaping. “You can have beautiful wildflowers,” he said. Agriculture can use similar concepts when it comes to fertilizing fields. Agriculture has become much more technology based. By doing soil testing and using GPS, farmers can apply exactly the fertilizer the soil needs rather than adding too much. Farmers are also turning to using cover crops in the late fall through the spring to hold soil and nutrients during a field’s dormant period. “Then we don’t get the same amount of nutrients in the lakes,” Bosch said. Cover crops also help maintain moisture and keep the soil from becoming compacted. Bosch is seeing more of these practices being put in place, but there is still more work to be done. Another concern this summer has been Escherichia coli levels, which shut down several public beaches this summer.
NATIVE LANDSCAPING — The building that is home to the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams is surrounded by landscaping done in native plantings. The ideas is to highlight how beautiful native plants are. The Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams has a lab that is certified by the State Board of Health for E. coli testing. Bosch explained processing a sample of E. coli can take some time, so a test one day may show the numbers are very high. If you have warm stagnant water, E. coli can persist. But if there is wind, it can dis-
sipate E. coli while at the same time cooling the water, which E. coli doesn’t like. E. coli data is published on the center’s website along with an explanation as to what safe levels are. “We work hard to make our research accessible,” Bosch said. Continued on page 3