The city recently fielded concerns from residents that Waughop Lake was experiencing a toxic algae bloom. Previously the lake experienced these blooms in the late summer months when temperatures remain high. The city has applied alum treatments to the lake in recent years to reduce toxic blooms.
In response to the worry that the lake was experiencing a bloom, the city asked the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s environmental services division to visit the site and test the lake.
The local health department team contacted their peers with King County’s health department and requested the water be tested as a precaution. The King County testing program is closed during the winter months, due to toxic algae blooms being less common in the winter. They agreed to open the environmental lab specifically to test the water.
The test results came back this week and showed there are no toxins in the water above the lab detection limits. This indicates there is no toxic algae bloom occurring in the lake.
I don’t believe anything the City of Lakewood says about Waughop Lake after their debacle with the alum treatment.
The reason why the City of Lakewood requested that water from Waughop Lake be tested for cyanobacteria toxins is because the City was advised by it two long time citizen volunteer water quaintly monitors advised the City that the lake’s turbid yellow green color was due to an infestation of a species of cyanobacteria (Chroococcus) that thrive in dissolved organic rich nutrient polluted saline lakes.
The 2020 March and July alum applications costing $420,000 changed the chemistry of Waughop Lake’s water such that its resident aquatic plant population died off and no longer can thrive in the aluminum, sulfate, sulfide and sodium ion polluted water of Waughop Lake. With disappearance of the lake’s aquatic plant population and the increase in its salinity (dissolved ion concentration) as measured by conductivity the frog, turtle, fish and avian plant eating (ducks) and birds of prey (eagle, osprey) population largely disappeared.
These biological consequences of these two alum treatments was foretold by Tom McClellan and me to Ecology, City of Lakewood Council members, City Manager and City staff and the citizens of Lakewood via a series of articles in The Suburban Times in 2019.
Not satisfied with the results of the 2020 alum treatments the City of Lakewood Council members approve a third alum application of Waughop Lake in 2023 in spite of additional notification by Tom and me that the result would be to further pollute Waughop Lake with toxic aluminum, sulfate, sulfide and sodium ions.
See our 2022 The Suburban Times article titled: Letter: Waughop Lake a Victim of Irresponsible Stewardship in this regard.
What was requested of the City was to have a centrifuged concentrated sample of the current population of cyanobacteria analyzed for four varieties of cyanobacteria toxins to assure the public that the lake is cyanotoxin free. Unfortunately, this was not the sample submitted for such analyses. The species of cyanobacteria that now populate the lake are not scum forming. Rather they are very small and remain suspended throughout the lake’s water column and impart its now yellow green color.
Waughop Lake now needs a remedial action plan to restore its fitness as habitat for beneficial algae, aquatic plants and all those creatures that depend upon such a habitat for their existence and the public’s enjoyment.
Proof in the puddin’ (literally)…..the birds definitely don’t like the water as illustrated very clearly in this Suburban Times letter:
https://thesubtimes.com/2024/01/17/letter-what-can-happen-when-a-government-ignores-its-citizens-input-especially-when-its-valid/