High school program deems Moses Lake clean

MOSES LAKE - It's still early, but information gathered during a high school water quality program are indicating a clean lake.

The Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District put on its second annual Water Quality Institute this week.

The program, with nine student participants, began Monday and concludes today.

Moses Lake High School science teachers Laurie Odegaard and Jennifer Carpenter hand-pick the students. They run an announcement at the school, and students fill out applications, listing three references and include an essay about why they would like to participate.

"Most of the kids that are choosing to do this, they're just naturally interested in sciences and in the environment," Odegaard said. "They really like to get out and explore hands-on science learning. It's kind of a treat for them to get out and do real science, as opposed to classroom laboratory science. They have a little ownership in it, and it's their own lake, their own community. That's the kind of kid we seem to attract to this kind of thing."

District Manager Curt Carpenter said the students begin with an introduction of Moses Lake and various watersheds in the Grant County area the first day.

The second day, two groups of students went out for hands-on water quality testing, at seven sites Carpenter tests periodically throughout the year.

The institute ended today with PowerPoint presentations of what the participants experienced and accomplished.

The institute's sponsors provided $800 as a scholarship given away to a participant at the end of the institute.

Results will be presented to the district board at their meeting July 8.

This year, the students were divided into two groups for one day of testing each.

"There's nine different tests they're doing on each site," Odegaard said.

Those tests include dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, total solids, nitrates, phosphates, biological oxygen demand, fecal coliform and turbidity, or the clarity of the water.

"Right now, it's really clean," Odegaard said. "We haven't found out the whole index yet, because we are still waiting for a few tests we have to run in an incubator, but overall, Moses Lake water is usually good water quality."

The turbidity of the water can sometimes be misleading to people who don't see clear, blue water.

"They judge the whole water quality of the lake based on what they see, but there's really these other chemical tests and looking at these other factors that play over in water quality," Odegaard explained. "Turbidity isn't necessarily one of the ones that are ranked the highest. We don't want to have nitrates or phosphates and for a healthy lake, you want to have a high oxygen quality so it can support the living organisms in the lake and water."

Curt Carpenter said the institute exposes students to what is involved in testing the health of a water body and watershed area.

"They get to compare against our testing," he said. "It gives us another chance as a comparison to dispel, in a way, (the impression) of how unhealthy our lake is. Our lake is very healthy."

Crawdads are a sign of a healthy lake, Carpenter said, adding the lake is "just thick" with them this year.

The lake quality findings are improved over last year's institute with regard to plant growth, which is a positive sign, Odegaard said.

This was Moses Lake High School senior Danielle Ordway's second year participating in the institute.

"I believe it's a good program to get into, and I believe it's going to help the community more than anything else," she said. "I really would like to be interested and know about my community more than just not know anything."

Junior Rhylee Ashby also wanted to know more about the water.

"When people first look at it, it looks all gross and murky and you don't want to swim in it," she said. "But when you do this, you actually figure out it's really healthy and good algae and stuff. That kind of changed my attitude on everything."