Lake commission unveils plans

ST. MARYS — About two weeks ago Tom Knapke took a call from a Dallas man who swore he could clean up Grand Lake St. Marys in 90 days. Knapke didn’t laugh at him, at least not right away.

“I didn’t laugh. I said, ‘Sir, you need to come on up here.’ We’re listening to a lot of people,” Knapke said.

Thursday night, it was the community’s turn to listen as Knapke and his fellow members of the Grand Lake St. Marys Restoration Commission explained what the group has been doing in the 10 months since it formed to find a cure for a sick lake.

The list of accomplishment so far is impressive. The group has raised almost $2.7 million, more than $500,000 of which came from local sources. That money has been used to fund studies, install equipment and seed more than $2 million in state and federal grants.

“When we met that first time 10 months ago, we were issued a challenge that basically said it’s your lake, fix it,” said Milt Miller, fundraising chairman for the group. “What we’ve done so far, in the hardest of economic times, I think that’s huge.”

Grand Lake has had problems for at least a decade, the result of bacteria commonly referred to as blue-green algae that are fed by the manure and chemical runoff from area farms and choke the life out of the lake. This past summer saw a low point for the community when water quality grew so toxic the state advised against swimming, fishing or even launching a boat in the lake.

The very public troubles brought new attention to the commission and its efforts. That has been followed by state and federal money and a slew of experts — both real and self-proclaimed — offering up solutions.

“We probably have at least 50 different applications from people with ideas. They’re coming in every day,” Knapke said.

For now, the group is moving forward with a multipronged approach to the problem that couples education and regulation to slow runoff; barriers and collectors to clean the water on its way into the lake; and chemical and natural solutions to deal with the high phosphorous levels already in the lake and the silt at its bottom.

The group plans to try out its plan first in the smaller tributary Prairie Creek where they will use what they are calling a “treatment train” system. That system begins at the farthest point from the lake with a flock of alum or some other product to limit the amount of phosphorous that passes.

After that, the water will run through a silt collector and then through a series of wetland. After the wetlands it will be introduced into a dredged cove and then another series of floating wetlands. In addition to all that, they hope to reintroduce a species of freshwater mussels that once lived in the lake. They will continue to work as living filters for the water.

If the process is proved to work at Prairie Creek, it will be used on the rest of the lake, said Jared Ebbing, Mercer County Economic Development director.

“Our hope is that we can replicate this in every other stream on the way in” to the lake, Ebbing said.

While that is happening in Prairie Creek, the Airy Gators and Streamside Collectors continue to work in other parts of the lake, along with alum and peroxide drops and other efforts.

“People ask me all the time what we’re doing about the lake,” Knapke said. “I tell that that somebody is doing something every day. It’s a slow process, but it’s being taken care of in a diligent fashion.”