Health district seeks volunteers to sample lake water

MOSES LAKE — The Grant County Health District and the Columbia Basin Conservation District are looking for volunteers who can regularly collect water samples from Moses Lake and take pictures to help both districts and the general public stay informed about the condition of the lake water.

According to GCHD Environmental Health Manager Stephanie Shopbell, the health district is soliciting volunteers who can regularly commit to taking water samples and pictures of lake conditions that will then be reported to an app the conservation district is developing to enable residents and anyone else wishing to use Moses Lake to check on lakewater conditions.

“We’ve wanted to do this for a number of years,” Shopbell said.

Lake water samples will be subjected to a simple test, which involves taking some lake water and letting it sit for 24 hours to see how much algae grows in the jar, Shopbell said. During blooms of blue-green algae, the health district usually takes water samples and sends them off to a certified state lab to test for the presence of dangerous toxins such as microcystin and anatoxin-a.

If the district can get enough volunteers, Shopbell said the plan is to divide the lake into six zones and gather samples and photos from multiple places within each zone once a week. In the event of blue-green algae blooms that could produce potentially dangerous toxins, Shopbell said the health district could post signs on only the affected lake zone.

“That’s contingent on having enough volunteers,” she said. “If we can see other areas have no blooms, we can limit warnings to just the area with the bloom.”

Shopbell said “enough” volunteers could be as few as four to six very dedicated people willing to commit to going out weekly to multiple sites.

“Or it could be many more who rotate each week,” she said.

Ron Scerbicke, watershed planner with the Columbia Basin Conservation District, said soliciting volunteers is not only a good way for the two districts to gather much-needed information about the lake. It’s also a very good way for residents to become involved and be part of improving the lake.

“They can be part of the solution,” he said.

Scerbicke said the conservation district is working on an app that will allow people to track the quality of the lake water. While a fair amount of work has been done, he said it will still be some time before the app is ready.

Shopbell said anyone interested in volunteering can contact the GCHD’s blue-green algae monitoring web page at granthealth.org/blue-green-algae-monitoring and click on the “volunteers” tab or go directly to the form at tinyurl.com/yc5arvp7. Applicants need a cellphone or a tablet and internet access to upload photos, she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.