According to the USACE web site,
The “dry out” lake stages for 33
sites in the North, West and Fisheating Bay (FEB)
that currently have sparse to dense beds of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV)
was predicted based on water depths recorded during the January to April SAV
surveys (Dry out stages Apr 09 OPS.ppt). These predicted “dry
out” stages indicate that if lake stage reaches 10.0 ft. NGVD then half
(17 of 33) of the sites that currently have SAV would go dry eliminating the
SAV from those site. In the North, 11 of the 18 SAV sites would go dry
and 3 SAV sites in each of the West and FEB areas would go dry. All of
the sites along the western wall have dense beds of topped out and reproductive
Vallisneria so fostering conditions that would
allow the lake stage to remain above 10.5 ft. would be beneficial to SAV
maintenance and continued growth. After the 2000 drought it took 2 to 3 years
for sparse beds of SAV to emerge in areas that had been dry.
March
water-quality monitoring results are now available. Two of the 25
monitoring stations (FEBIN and FEBOUT) were not sampled due to low water
conditions. Total phosphorus averaged 124 ppb lakewide
(compared to 138 ppb in February) and 104 ppb at nearshore
stations (compared to 125 ppb in February). Total suspended solids
averaged 21 ppm lakewide
(compared to 22 ppm in
February) and 18 ppm at nearshore
stations (compared to 20 ppm in February). Graphs
attached (Arp 09 OPS.ppt).
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