Memorandum
Date: June 13, 2023
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: District 3 Supervisor, Eddie "EJ" Crandell
District 2 Supervisor, Bruno Sabatier
Subject: Consideration of project plan for South Lake Algae Bloom Abatement in the Clearlake and Clearlake Oaks areas and submit project plan for funding to ARPA committee for their consideration, and/or to consider using Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, and/or to submit as a potential project to Congressman Thompson for the annual Congressional Community Project Funding.
Executive Summary:
Over the course of the past ten years, the county has paid approximately $200,000 per year for Aquatic Weed Management equating to approximately $2 million. It is important to keep the weeds down to ensure that recreational activities such as boating don't get tangled up, proliferate the invasive aquatic weeds, and have adverse impacts on boats which in turn can have adverse impacts on tourism.
However, algae blooms offer similar issues in its impact to economic development including the potential health hazards that come along with them. Between 1969 - 1990, the county has documented spending less than $500,000 in efforts to mitigate the algae in the lake. Between 1990 to the present, studies have been done such as the Clean Lake Grant project to monitor/study water quality and impacts on algae. In 2006, due to the aforementioned studies, the Clear Lake TMDL stakeholder ground was created to address both nutrient and Hg TMDL's. Since 2009, UC Davis has been evaluating our data that has been collected.
While the Middle Creek Restoration Project is not a silver bullet in dealing with our lake's algae, it is an important project that will help. However, it will not be completed for many more years to come. During this time, we have met with multiple groups that work with lakes to reduce algae blooms and have found LG Sonic to offer a very hopeful solution.
The solution for both the ...
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