In order to organize my sporadic and philosophical thoughts, I decided to write everything down for myself. Here are my (quite lengthy) musings...
Hillary Kenyon
NECNALMS Talk (written blog post)
June 2014
A Community Approach to Conservation
A great
deal of my presentation stems from personal observations in the field and at
lake group meetings, but that some of the central components have arisen from
the long car rides and philosophical conversations about lake management with
my boss and co-workers. We love studying lakes, and we love pondering
ways to improve people’s connection to and understanding of the unique
landscapes. Lakes provide an incredible assemblage of natural resources, which
require cooperative conservation efforts.
To start, let’s
identify some of those resources:
· - A place for recreation: swimming, kayaking,
boating, fishing, birding, etc.
· - Increased property value, which is also tied to
recreation, and overall aesthetic value.
· - Some lakes were created for the purpose of flood
control.
· - Others were created to form drinking water
reservoirs for highly populated areas.
· - A few lakes in the Northeast provide
hydroelectric power.
· - Habitat that preserves species biodiversity and
balances local ecosystems (intrinsic value of nature).
· - Drivers of local economies. People come to use
the lake…but they stay to rent kayaks, have lunch, and drop by the convenience
store.
Now that we've specified how lakes provide for us and what resources we need to conserve, what
are the threats to lakes?
Well…we all come to this conference expecting to learn about
the common ecological threats:
1.
Nutrient enrichment causing algae and
cyanobacteria blooms.
2.
Invasive aquatic species.
3.
Sediment deposition.
But what about social
threats? (Yes they link to the ecological threats..)
·
Lack of
Responsibility – “The DEEP comes and cleans up.”
“The CT Ag. Station studied our lake ten years ago, why do we need
another study?”
“My property doesn't contribute to runoff; my neighbor uses more
fertilizer than I do.”
“Why should I spend the money to plant a vegetated buffer when no one
else will?”
·
Lack of
organization – What are the specific management goals? Are these conditions
normal? Is volunteer monitoring working? Are things getting better or worse? Are
all involved parties effectively communicating?!
·
Apathy
– An underlying social indifference to the fact to human actions are
detrimental to lakes. You may not see any problems now, but what about the
future?
A community approach to conservation
aims to curtail social threats!
To delve into each of the main
points, I want to draw upon things I have personally noticed during the past
year: good and bad. First, I’ll pinpoint a few observed shortcomings, and then
I’ll try to identify a few plausible solutions that are currently modeled by successful
lake management programs.
Lack
of responsibility:
Public lakes versus private lakes.
The difference is that a lake is either owned by the state or the town and has
public access through some form of a boat ramp, or it is considered privately owned by the lakeside residents whose
properties border the water. When we work on private lakes, we very rarely
find any trash or litter strewn along the shores. The obvious reason is because
people tend not to litter on their own property. Yet when we visit lakes that
do have public access, there is always litter scattered throughout public
spaces. Whether it is a lakeside park, a sidewalk, a road bordering the lake, or
a boat ramp…publicly used lakes have more litter. You might argue that this is
because more people use the lake and there will inevitably be more trash. So
yes, I agree with you, but I also believe that there is only trash in the first
place because the increased number of people using the lake feel absolutely no
ownership and thus no responsibility. That lack of responsibility manifests
itself in more careless behavior and less regard for the environment.
Now, I know that it is not the litter that’s fueling declining lake condition.
It’s not fishing line or beer cans, or candy wrappers or plastic bags that
cause eutrophication, sedimentation, and invasive species. But it all really relates
to that same carelessness and lack of responsibility. I feel like lake
management can be likened to Garrett Hardin’s, “Tragedy of the Commons.”
If you skip over the littering
phenomenon, the lack of responsibility extends to private lakes as well. Homeowners do not each have their own little slice of the water that they
can take care of. Lake management doesn’t work like that; it works when all
involved parties commit to a holistic plan backed by sound science. Such a plan
involves time, money, professional involvement, and dedicated and responsible
individuals to uphold watershed standards while promote education.
But who pays for that? Who takes the
time out of their busy schedule to organize lake planning meetings and
educational events? –---- In many cases, that would be you guys! (**Points to
audience**) You are all here because you care; you are all here because you
know that your lake and the resources it provides depend upon effective lake
management.
There would be no way to manage
lakes without responsible people like you, but now you need to spread the word
and hold everyone else responsible for their actions as well. This doesn’t
always mean pointing fingers at people who've built extensive rock walls along
their property or those who dump thousands of bags of sand into the lake every
summer so they can have a “beach.” Sometimes it’s as simple as identifying
dense filamentous algae beds, while simultaneously making it known that algae
problems arise from elevated nutrient levels. If you bring septic leachate and lawn
fertilizers into the picture, people will often get the hint, and take action
themselves because they don’t want people to point fingers at them.
Lack
of organization:
In the past year, I have seen the
profound difference between lakes with well-organized management programs and
those that are still in the works. There are some instances where Lake
Associations and towns come to us in search of guidance and request a study of
their lake. The kicker here is that, more often than not, the lake has already
had several studies from different consultants or environmental engineering
companies that all conclude the same thing… “Specific problem areas have been
identified, effort should be put into managing invasive species and these are
your options…, milfoil coverage may be spreading and internal loading of
Phosphorus may be a concern, but FURTHER STUDIES NEED TO BE CONDUCTED.”
Then why is there frequently gaps in
the type of data collected? Why do lake residents let five to twenty years pass
between collecting and analyzing water samples from in and around the lake? Why
do people continue to treat the lake with copper to kill algae when there has
been no effort to control internal loading or watershed nutrient inputs? Why do
invasive aquatic plants come to dominate whole littoral zones? --- Because no
one was watching them as they slowly overran all other native species? --- Or if it
was noticed, nothing was done in rapid response.
Those questions are the kinks that
need to be worked out for an effective lake management plan. The most
successful and organized programs that we work with have specific management
goals and a means to compare progress. It goes back to responsibility.
For example: Some lakes recognize
that they are eutrophic and that nutrient inputs are causing severe
cyanobacteria blooms at the end of the summer and into the fall. They decide
that clarity is important to them and set a goal to have at least 3-meters of
clarity by reducing nutrient flow into the lake. They commit to a long-term, monthly
monitoring plan and the funding to support scientific analysis of the data for
the future. The data is collected throughout the growing season over many years
and, at first, serves as a baseline to determine normal conditions, and then as
a way to track progress.
The next thing to touch upon
regarding organization is volunteer monitoring. Volunteer water quality
monitoring and sample collection is an amazing way to reduce the costs of
long-term lake management. However, the program must be held to scientific
standards and should have a professional scientist to oversee protocols. There
is no sense in paying a lab lots of money for them to only analyze total
phosphorus from a surface grab next to your dock. The Secchi disk reading at
the town beach is usually not indicative of the whole lake. And when it comes
to measuring temperature and oxygen profiles, you must do it so that the probe
isn't extended at a thirty degree angle as you drift in the wind. Finally, when
it comes to phytoplankton counts and making sense of the nutrient data, it is
usually good to leave that to a professional -- I studied science for four
years at UCONN and I work nearly every day out on lakes, and I am
still confused by what certain Ammonia levels indicate and could not tell you
the difference between Planktothrix and Oscillatoria…(**They are actually the
same thing, haha**)
That last point leads into my next
social threat…
Believing
you know all there is to know:
There is no definitive way to
predict exactly what the lake is going to do next season… An algae bloom could
result from increased nutrient runoff from a huge rain storm; the fanwort may
not explode to 100% cover or ‘top-out’ in ten feet of water if herbicide
treatment is delayed for a year; bottom-water phosphorus could be astronomical
one year and back to normal the next… When we say, “complex ecosystems,” we
mean it! Lakes condition is highly variable and it is critical to collect as
much data as possible to identify positive or negative trends over long periods
of time.
If you want to conserve the
resources that your lake provides, it is wise not to skimp out on management because
your lake is oligotrophic and you have never had a problem with invasive
plants. You don’t know what will happen in the future. A preventative penny is worth thousands of dollars in “cure.”
Apathy:
Apathy hinders positive change. It
is virtually impossible to force people to care about the environment. People
must find a personal connection to the lake on their own. Individuals have to
reach the realization that their actions do affect the lake (both good and
bad).
Like I said before about the preventative
penny, putting things on the back burner leads to greater future problems and spending
more money. So how do you tie in the responsibility as lake leaders,
recognizing the need for an organized lake management program for the years to
come, and a possible public indifference? – Create incentives, give people a
sense of importance, and let them copy you!
Some of the lakes that we work with
have created the simplest incentives yet, “You don’t like milfoil surrounding
your dock and tying up your prop? Well you should probably help us fund a
management plan to take care of that…” People have been calling the toxic
blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) blooms a ‘wake-up call,’ but what they really mean
is that it is a public health incentive to manage nutrient issues. Incentives overcome
apathy and fuel the economic support that sustains effective lake management.
Giving people a voice, making people
feel connected to the lake community, and making people feel like their opinion
and concerns matter, is critical to lake management. As previously emphasized,
management is a collective effort. It needs the scientists from the DEEP,
consulting companies, and herbicide application firms, but management plans
will collapse without community involvement and dedication. Excluding some
residents from planning meetings and discouraging new ideas does not encourage
responsible lake behavior. Why should someone respect what you suggest as a way
to help the lake, if you do not return the favor? It might take more time to
make decisions and get through meetings, but an educated response to an idea is
a hundred times more productive than trivializing concerns and shooting down a
person’s thoughts on the matter.
If you want to truly make a
difference; the easiest way to overcome apathy is to slowly change a social
norm. What does your lake look like? Can you see the houses from the lake, or
is there a thick woody vegetated buffer? Are there more rock walls and
manicured lawns, or does the general landscape design reflect more attention to
managing stormwater runoff and maintaining shrubs and wetland plants along the
shoreline? What I have personally noticed, is that each lake has a standard to
which the residents adhere. On lakes where there are many houses built right up
to the shoreline, new houses are also being built that close. And if there is a
rock wall lining a portion of the lake, it usually extends at least three or
four properties…. Did the neighbors all get together and hire the same person?!
What am I getting at here? Peer
pressure.
I’ve been reading a number of books on
Conservation Psychology. One book, written by Niki Harre of New
Zealand, mostly refers to strategies to inspire sustainability. Of all of the
points, I find her research on social identities and positive ‘copying’ the
most interesting and applicable to lake management. Based on her sustainability
tactics, if you want to promote more lake-friendly actions and infrastructure,
you must model the behavior that you want people to copy. In theory, others
will slowly catch on and through peer pressure, begin to change their practices
as well. Eventually, a lake community can be transformed into one where it is
only socially acceptable to have rain gardens and native vegetative buffer
zones. The residential norm will slide into one where there is more social
pressure on maintaining a cleanly boat ramp, and where everyone entering and
exiting the lake actually inspects
the bottom of their boat and trailer for aquatic hitchhikers. No one would want
to be seen flicking a cigarette butt on the ground or forgetting to check their
boat. That kind of mentality will translate into other aspects of lake
management as well. If you identify with being involved in your lake
association and people expect you to part-take in an educational “lake day”
program, you best be clearing your schedule because “everyone” will be there.
To conclude, my ultimate goal really was to stress
the importance of social science in natural resource conservation and lake management. If we shift our collective approach to conservation to
the combat social threats (lack of responsibility, lack of organization, and apathy), a healthier ecosystem will follow and we can continue utilizing the lake's resources.
