The MiCorps Monitor: July 2009
Article 5:
The Volunteer Corner:
An Interview with Al Vichunas, Hubbard Lake Volunteer
Wanting to learn from and recognize the volunteers who give of their time and energy to monitor the health and quality of our lakes and streams, the MiCorps team has created a new section of the MiCorps Monitor dedicated to these individuals. For this installment of the Volunteer Corner, the MiCorps team spoke with Al Vichunas, water quality chairman and volunteer lake monitoring coordinator for the Hubbard Lake Sportsman and Improvement Association, to talk about his experience as a lake monitor.
MiCorps Monitor: First of all, thank you for your time and for letting us ask you a few questions. How long have you been a volunteer lake monitor with the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program (CLMP) on Hubbard Lake?
Vichunas: I’ve been involved for about eight years now, through the Hubbard Lake Sportsman and Improvement Association. I was new to the area and so when they asked for volunteers to take over the monitoring program, I volunteered. I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into, though! I had to learn as I went, but I’ve learned a lot over the years.
MiCorps Monitor: What is your role as a lake monitor?
Vichunas: As the water quality chairman, I set up the schedule for the secchi disk teams to monitor at seven different locations each week. I also do dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, and phosphorus sampling with one of my neighbors. At the beginning of each sampling season, I usually write up a short article on what we do for our newsletter. If I had more time, there is a lot more that we could do. But since I’m still working part-time, I just don’t have the time to organize more than the basic sampling that we’ve been doing for years.
MiCorps Monitor: That sounds quite involved. Do you get to dive into the science involved with the sampling and lake observations?
Vichunas: Don’t give me too much credit! The sampling is pretty easy once you’ve been trained to do it. And DEQ does the analysis once we send the samples out. So there’s not much chemistry involved. Other people are doing that for us. But I’ve learned more about it over the years. The annual training put on by the CLMP and DEQ has been helpful for that.
MiCorps Monitor: That’s good to hear. So tell me more about your monitoring team. Is it the same group of volunteers each time? How often do you sample?
Vichunas: The other volunteers are mostly folks from the association who live near the lake. We have about 25-30 active members in the group, and the people who help with the lake sampling are mostly retired auto workers. They want to be involved because the lake has a direct impact on property values and because of the lake’s fishing and recreational use.
We do the secchi disk monitoring weekly, May through September. The dissolved oxygen sampling uses a meter that we share with three other lakes, so that is harder to coordinate and done less frequently – maybe twice per month. Clorophyll sampling is done one per month and phosphorus is twice per year (spring and fall). We also observe the weather and lake conditions, but since Hubbard Lake is so large, the lake really determines when we can go out to do our sampling. You can get waves up to 2-3 feet high on this lake and, let me tell you, you don’t want to be out there when conditions are rough.
MiCorps Monitor: So how healthy is the lake, in your opinion? What are your major concerns about impacts to the lake’s water quality?
Vichunas: It’s a mostly agricultural, rural area. Lots of cow and horse farms nearby, with some hay and corn fields. So we would expect to see increased amounts of phosphorus and nutrients as a result. Fortunately, so far we haven’t seen any changes to the water quality over time. For a while we were worried about the introduction of zebra muscles to the lake. There’s always something new to be looking out for, it seems. But it’s a large lake, so it would take a long time to pollute. Even so, it’s important to educate those living on the lake about their impacts to the water.
MiCorps Monitor: Definitely. So what interesting observations have you noted over time?
Vichunas: The lake has been losing weed growth, which is a bad thing because that provides habitat for fish. Since some of the weed beds have been destroyed that has had some impacts on the different fish populations, or at least that’s what I understand. The Sportsman group has been placing cedar fish shelters around the lake to help counter some of this loss of weed beds.
MiCorps Monitor: So what words of wisdom do you have for others who may be interested in volunteering as a stream or lake monitor?
Vichunas: You have to be willing to give your time for a good cause… to protect the environment, or because you don’t want to see the lake polluted. It’s a basic thing of education in the end. It’s important to educate those living on the lake about fertilizing their grass, maintaining their septic system, keeping debris and runoff out of the lake, not spilling fuel in the water, maintaining their ability to keep out invasive species. These things make a difference in the quality of the lake. That’s how we get people interested and keep them coming back!
Do you know an extraordinary volunteer lake or stream monitor?
Please send your nominations for future installments of the Volunteer Corner to Laura Kaminski, MiCorps Program Administrator, at laurak@glc.org.
Author:
Laura Kaminski
MiCorps Staff
Great Lakes Commission
MiCorps www.micorps.net