MEETING MINUTES 2007         May,15

May 15, 2007  General Meeting Minutes

Country Club Hotel and Spa

Jaci Fergusen, Springfield EPA office, presiding over this meeting, introduced herself and opened the May 15, 2007 meeting of LOWA with a round of introductions of all in attendance.

First, LOWA's Mission Statement was reviewed, then Committee's reported.

Recycling - Linda Kimrey - this group had their first meeting May 14^th at the Factory Outlet.  They looked at two issues:  1) barriers to starting recycling at the Lake; and 2) how to show cities, counties, etc, that people in the Lake area really do want recycling.  We all need to reuse the materials instead of letting them end up where they don't belong.

Lake Safety - Carol Lee Prosser - MO State Water Patrol and United States Coast Guard are trying for a big kick off for Safety at the Lake of the Ozarks.  Billboards announcing the Designated Captain program and other aspects of lake safety have begun appearing around the Lake area and on highways leading into the Lake.  Lake of the Ozarks (LOZ) has the most cigarette style boats of any lake in the state and has been cited as the nation's 3^rd most dangerous body of water because of the number of fatal boating accidents every year.  The Lake Safety Council meets at the Quail's Nest, 10 am, the 4^th Tuesday of every month.  All interested people are invited.

Water Quality - Greg Stoner - The 5-year study on the Lake of the Ozarks to study E. coli will be starting May 29^th.  Teams have received training and equipment and all are eagerly anticipating the first collection day. 

Education/Outreach - Christy Fera - the Earth Day event, organized by Elizabeth Benz for the 120+ 5^th graders of Osage Upper Elementary went very well.  All who participated received t-shirts and the students also received hands-on water quality experiences, valuable information about streams and water, as well as a goody bag to help them remember about conservation and the importance of water quality.  Elizabeth read a thank-you card from the students in Mrs. Kile's class.

World Water Monitoring Day (WWMD) in mid-October is coming up and LOWA will be coordinating efforts with MO Stream Team and Lakes of MO Volunteer Program (LMVP) to host a big event celebrating awareness of the need for Clean Water not only in the Lake of the Ozarks, but also in the many streams and creeks which empty their waters into the Lake.  We will have more information on that, later. 

Stream Team - Caroline Toole - no new news other than the WWMD mentioned above.  Please go to LOWA's website and click on Caroline's name if you are interested in participating in Stream Team.

Waste Water - David Morgan - This group is gearing up for the beginning of the Pump-Out Program in Camden County.  Grant money should be available the first of July.  This first phase is hoping for as many as 120 pump-outs in LOZ's immediate watershed.  Action from this program may well be seen in results from the E. coli study mentioned above under Water Quality.  Part of that program is to attempt to analyze the efficacy of existing water treatment facilities and this Pump-Out Program may well also be able to play a role in that aspect of the study.

Next on the agenda was a presentation by Ted Fry, Master Gardener, from the MU Extension Office in Columbia where he is the Regional Agronomy Specialist.  Ted spoke about The Safe and Proper Use of Home Pesticides and Fertilizers.  The first point Ted made was that any use of pesticides and/or fertilizers should be a part of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program.  Having an IPM program means knowing about the pest or disease and some of the other means of controlling it without the chemical.  A pesticide can be a chemical or a biological agent - anything which kills, prevents, or controls the pest.  Most home use of pesticides occurs inside and next highest use is on lawns.  Other common home uses of pesticides are on food crops and on ornamentals.  Reading the label of the pesticide container is vital to safe use of that substance.  Before using a pesticide, one should determine the ingredients, both active and inactive, where the pesticide is to be used, whether the product is ready to be used, all cautions and hazard warnings, and the statement of practical treatment, which is also used by medical personnel in case of an exposure.  Around water, one needs to be very careful of all soluble products.  Also on labels, one will find certain signal words:  Danger - most restrictive term; Warning - still pretty restrictive; needs protective clothing, etc.; Caution - still need to use gloves, etc.  This is the level that most products homeowners buy are at.  Wondering whether to use a product around the water?  Read the label.  Wondering whether to use the product around pets?  Read the label.  Wondering whether to use the product on food crops?  Read the label.  If you see a problem with pesticides or fertilizers that you wish to report, report to the Dept. of Agriculture, Plant Industries Division.  There are many routes of pesticide exposure:  dermal - skin; oral - ingestion; respiratory - breathing; ocular - eyes.  Are all dermal entry routes equal?  NO.  The genital area is the worst exposure area because that is the area of most absorption.  The label will list the personal protection clothing and equipment needed for that product.  After applying pesticides, clean up right away; wash clothes and dry them in the sun.  The MU Extension Service has many pamphlets available.  Online, go to muextension.missouri.edu .  The label will also have a part about environmental hazards and precautions to prevent harm to non-targeted organisms or to the environment.  Fish and birds are often mentioned here.  Much more information is included on the label of all pesticide and fertilizer containers.  Information  like what to treat, rate of application, method of application and equipment, timing and frequency of application, specific limitations on reentry to treated areas, and much more is found on the label.  Be sure to read the label thoroughly before using any pesticide or fertilizer product.  Applying too much pesticide or fertilizer can be costly, but applying too little can also be costly. Read the label.  For disposal, read the label.  If you have some product left over, look for hazardous household waste trade-in centers or disposal centers.  Columbia, MO has a program where individuals can bring parts of cans of paint, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. and either trade for something of use or simply drop off a product for someone else to use.  Become active in your community to start a hazardous household waste disposal center.  Many empty containers can be triple rinsed and disposed of in a the regular household trash.  Rinse the containers in the area where they have been used, if possible.  Store and dispose of all substances responsibly.   Please remember that 7,279 of 15,015 pest poisonings in the US involved children under 6 years of age. 

With fertilizers, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are the two parts of fertilizers most associated with nonpoint source pollution and environmental concerns.  Many of the water quality regulations already on the books are concerned with N and P amounts.  Sources of phosphorus include the mineral, apatite, fertilizer products, some detergents, especially electric dish washing detergent, and organic matter of all sorts, including humus, microorganisms, manure, and human waste.  Nitrogen levels rise and fall quickly but phosphorus sticks around once in the water.  In archeology, one can map out sites by the P soil tests because P shows up where people and animals were because phosphorus tends to stick on the soil also.  The Ozarks have fairly low levels of P because the Ozarks is an old weathered landscape, geologically speaking.  But, when people and their large numbers of domesticated animals show up, P levels rise.  So, soil testing is important for the individual to know how much and where the phosphorus is needed.  One big problem with phosphorus and the Lake of the Ozarks is that P is a plant nutrient and, in the water, encourages the growth of water plants like algae.  In the Lake and in the surrounding streams, there are normally low levels of P and little algae growth.  But with development, P can become a problem because phosphorus is the nutrient most lacking in this ecosystem for rapid and copious amounts of plant growth.  When the soil is disturbed and erodes into the Lake, and when types and amounts of activities in the watershed change, phosphorus is added to the Lake over and above normal.  Increased amounts of P leads to increased amounts of algae growing in the Lake.  An increased amount of algae growing in one area is called an algae bloom.  Algae blooms are not only displeasing to the eye, they can produce noxious odors as well as toxins (poisons released into the water that can harm fish, people, or other organisms).  In addition, when the large masses of algae die, oxygen in the water is used up, leading to fish kills.  Phosphorus is expensive so farmers are careful with it and other fertilizers.  Some communities have banned phosphate (a form of phosphorus) containing detergents and cleaning agents.  Individuals can make a difference in phosphate water pollution.  Some nitrogen sources are manure, human waste, organic matter, precipitation, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and fertilizer products.  But again, nitrogen is expensive, so farmers are careful.  More products these days use slow-release N  products which are better for the plants and have less potential impact on the environment because the product doesn't release a large amount of N all at once.  Soil tests are very important to determine where and how much nitrogen is needed.  Don't irrigate or water too much.  If you are getting runoff, you could be washing off your fertilizer right into the watershed and the lake.  Think about how we use the Lake.  One unthoughtful act, no big deal; multiplied by many in the watershed and on the Lake, now that IS a BIG DEAL!

Maybe LOWA could look into a Hazardous Waste pick up day or site where people could take their left-over pesticides and empty containers.  On the Lake of the Ozarks, a biological control, a strain of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), is sprayed on the Lake and a disc form of malathion is used for mosquito control.

Next on the agenda was Greg Stoner to report about the upcoming water quality study, 2007 E. coli Testing on the Lake of the Ozarks.  This is a 5-year study of the waters in the coves of LOZ, specifically looking at fecal coliform bacteria and the presence of E. coli.  This study should also indicate the effectiveness of waste water treatment around the Lake. E. coli is an indicator for waste water treatment that is not effective.  Elevated levels of E. coli could also indicate elevated levels of pathogens and pollutants.  Each year, 120 sites will be tested, and different groups of 120 sites will be tested each succeeding year, so that by the end of the 5 years, an analysis of the entire Lake of the Ozarks will have been completed.  This year, coves from Bagnell Dam to the toll bridge will be sampled and tested.  If there are problem sites found this year, those sites can be retained and sampled in future years even though the other sampling locations will have shifted to a different portion of the lake.  More volunteers will be needed in future years ash the collection sites shift around the Lake.  The samples will be collected and transported to a MO Dept of Natural Resources lab by trained LOWA volunteers.  Since there is only a 6 hour window of time between when the sample is collected and the testing performed, the addition of trained LOWA volunteers to the study allowed for three times the number of samples to be collected and analyzed.  The lab will be in the State Park across from the Osage Beach City Hall.

The last part of the agenda was Bob Broz, MU Extension Services, presenting a Groundwater Flow Model to demonstrate and discuss how quickly and easily pollution can affect our water supply.  The groundwater flow model represents a cross section of the earth.  Through transparent sides, we see soil, gravel, rocks, ponds, wells, landfills, streams, underground tanks, etc.  When dye is added to different points, we see how ground water flows, how surface waters interact, and how pollution can get into our drinking water.  Water moves underground through air spaces in rock layers like sandstones and cracked limestone.  As water moves, it dissolves things in its path and the water can pick up contaminants and pollutants.  The Center for Disease Control says 50% of wells have bacteria levels too high for human consumption.  Ozark soils are rocky and bedrock is fractured limestone.  Therefore, ground water can move very fast and the water doesn't get very filtered.  Missouri is called the Cave State, but this same topography has thin soils and soils help break down pollutants and contaminants.  Therefore, in the Ozarks, water gets a double whammy - not only do thin soils do little for breaking down contaminants, the same thin soil and cracked up limestone bedrock do very little filtering and cleaning.  The underground water tapped into by wells is called an aquifer.  This water supply, or aquifer, is NOT an underground river or lake; this aquifer is the air spaces in certain underground rock layers that fills with water and is fed, to an extent, by the waters moving from the surface, down through the thin soil and fractured bedrock.  On average, each person uses about 68 gallons of water per day.  Each well use causes a cone of depression around that well as the water level of the aquifer goes down temporarily.  How fast that cone of depression refills depends on a lot of factors including how much water is coming into the aquifer and how much water is being taken out of the aquifer.  Each time a cone of depression is used and refills, the moving water dissolves even more substances (including the calcium, or lime, that makes Ozark water so hard).  In 1987, new well regulations for protecting well water from being contaminated by surface water leaking in came into effect.  Now, each well must have at least 80 feet of casing.  Data is on record with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Rolla to show the depth and where the well drillers hit water and the types of soil.  If you want information on your well, use your legal description of your property and go to the DNR website.  To find records of your well, go to the Division of Land Survey or, probably better, the Water Resources Division.

The next LOWA meeting will be in the Crystal Ballroom at Tan Tar A on June 18^th at 6:30 pm.