Field Notes on Climate

Ami Eckard-Lee: How can rain be bad for lakes?

Seems counterintuitive, right?

Shouldn’t more water be a good thing?

Well, the answer is not always.

Climate change is disrupting weather patterns all over the world.

In some places, it’s leading to droughts, while in other areas, it can cause more frequent and intense rainfall events.

Too much water can actually lower the water quality in some rivers and lakes, and it all depends on how we manage water… …on land.

[bright music] I’m here in Madison, Wisconsin, a city surrounded by lakes along with a plethora of streams, rivers, creeks, and ponds.

With all that water around, it’s not surprising there are people whose whole job is to study these bodies of water.

These are limnologists.

And one of them is gonna take us out on Lake Mendota so we can get to the source of this issue of water quality.

How might things like rainfall affect the water quality in rivers and lakes?

David Ortiz: Yeah, rain is super important and is a really big driving force in water quality.

With changing climate, the Midwest specifically is expected to get more wet and experience more frequent high-intensity rain events.

So, when that rain is moving through the landscape, water is a really good at dissolving and moving things.

So, that includes, like, pollutants or nutrients and transporting it into the streams and rivers as opposed to kind of infiltrating into the soil.

For Lake Mendota and the Yahara Watershed, it’s mainly agricultural runoff, generally phosphorus.

That’s the pollutant of concern.

Cityscapes can also contribute to runoff concerns for aquatic ecosystems.

So, if you have, like, a really manicured lawn, if you have a lot of fertilizers to keep it green, those can also contribute to phosphorus and nutrients entering the water body.

Not picking up after pets, like, their waste can also contribute to urban runoff.

Litter, leaves, they can actually release a lot of phosphorus.

Salt is a really big one, salt that is used to de-ice roads.

It’s bad for the organisms that live in water.

So, yeah, just slightly different runoff pollutants are entering the watershed.

– So, how does that end up affecting the lake?

– Yeah, it’s affecting lakes and rivers in a lot of different ways.

So, if you have too much phosphorus, algae and aquatic plants can grow uncontrollably.

So, if you have too much algae, you can change pH.

Like, so, amphibians and fish are really sensitive to pH levels.

Ami: Okay.

David: Dissolved oxygen can decrease.

That huge swing is what often triggers fish kills.

Ami: Fish kills?

David: Yeah, like– – Ami: ‘Cause fish need to breathe oxygen, right?

David: Yeah.

And then, if also you have too much algae, you can actually have shading effects going on.

And not enough light is entering to allow macrophytes to grow, aquatic plants grow.

– Okay, okay.

So, affects everything kind of in these different ways.

– Also, water temperatures have been increasing.

And cyanobacteria like warmer temperatures.

– Okay.

– Cyanobacteria known to produce toxins that are harmful to humans.

And, if a lake warms up quicker every year, it’s giving more time for cyanobacteria blooms to occur.

– Our waterways are extremely connected, and actions taken upstream can have a major impact on the water quality of a lake that’s miles away.

Protecting the quality of our waterways is important for the aquatic ecosystem and the species that depend on it to survive, but also for the health and safety of anyone who wants to enjoy those spaces for recreation.

Let’s head over to Starkweather Creek to meet up with a science class from Malcolm Shabazz City High School to learn more about water quality in our communities.

Brian Counselman: It’s kind of a nice little hidden gem when you’re actually on it.

If you just read about it in the news, it won’t be like, oh, but when you look around, it’s pretty, right?

And pretty matters sometimes too, of, like, advocating for stuff, so.

– Has doing this class and learning more about the watershed and all the things going into it changed how you think about the water and how you interact with it?

Kei Davis: Yes.

August Windel: I have noticed here in Madison, again, there’s a lot of runoff.

And so, just the water quality is not good.

As a kid, I would actually swim in the lakes here a lot, and at first, I didn’t see a problem with it.

And as I was growing older, I was like, “Hmm, I can’t see my hands below the water.”

– Growing up in Madison and having a lot of water access, as a kid, there used to be a lot of, like, “Yeah, there’s an algae bloom, you can’t really go in the water.”

And then, you grow up, and you’re looking out at it, and you’re like, “Yeah, these issues have always been here, but I’m witnessing as it gets worse.”

We gotta do something about that.

– Yeah, it’s not supposed to be that way.

– It’s not supposed to do that.

– What would you say people should do about pollution?

– Educating yourself on it, and figuring out what you can do to prevent from contributing.

– If you don’t know, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

There’s resources and knowledge if you just ask people.

– Uh-huh.

– Yeah, and the more you protect this and think about the water quality, you know, then it kind of does this, like, circle where it fuels more protection in the future.

Water is amazing.

I spend much time with water.

I like being around water.

You know, we’d love to go swimming, but there’s some days where you have to say no to your nine-year-old and you’re like, oh, yeah, that’s weird to have to, like, be in a city surrounded by lakes and say, “Don’t swim.”

They have the frustration, they have the anxiety around some of these issues, but they aren’t sure what to do with that.

And so, I think that’s where a class like this is really important of, like, here’s where you can channel that into an actionable thing.

You can go build something, you can educate around something or advocate, you know, think globally.

Hugely important to understand the context, but act locally.

That’s one of our emphases with the class of like, how can we kind of find this balance of, like, talk about the freshwater ecosystems, talk about the streams, talk about some of the challenges that are happening there, but also hopefully have students fall in love with them enough that they care enough to protect ’em.

Kind of the idea of like, if you don’t know a thing, you’re not gonna care about it, and if you don’t care about it, you’re not gonna protect it.

– Water quality does not just affect the species who live in the water.

It also affects everything that utilizes water too.

So, if water quality affects us all, what can we do to protect the quality of the water here in our communities?

Paul Dearlove: We all have an impact on these lakes in terms of the individual decisions that we make and how we treat the land, how we use the water.

We have opportunities everywhere.

There are opportunities to make these waterways, lake like Lake Wingra, remain these very special, beautiful places.

But it’s gonna require that we take action.

And so, what we do as an organization is provide programs like water quality monitoring.

We have a completely volunteer-run monitoring program called Lake Forecast.

These volunteers are citizen scientists and they take different measurements.

They upload that information, and this allows us to track changing water quality conditions.

That information from our citizen scientists is extremely valuable because it sort of makes all this data accessible and understandable, so that the public in different communities can be informed, and they can advocate for the changes that are needed to improve these ecosystems.

– What kind of data do you collect?

Amelia Welton: Visual observations, as like, how much algae there is in the lake.

And then, we do air temp and water temp.

Miranda Weidert: And then, this is for water clarity.

– And how often do you come and do this?

All: Every week.

– Really?

What have you learned by doing this project?

Stella Gomez Phillips: I have learned that we can make an impact on, like, the lake.

– Like, be mindful about what you’re putting on the ground because it doesn’t just go away, it doesn’t go away.

It goes somewhere after that.

– And where it goes is the lake.

– Yeah.

– What would you recommend individuals can do to help their area waterways?

– Get involved in citizen science!

– It’s hard to look at something as large as a lake and believe your actions could make a noticeable difference, but they can.

Groups like the Clean Lakes Alliance help raise awareness around positive actions individuals can take to protect the water in their community.

So, what can people do to help protect these shared waters?

You can start at home by raking leaves out of the gutter, or making sure to pick up your pet’s waste wherever they go.

You can also create a rain garden at home, at your school, or somewhere else in your community to help rainwater absorb into the ground better, helping to prevent runoff.

Or become a citizen scientist like Amelia, Miranda, and Stella and help collect the data that’s used to create the rules and regulations that protect our waterways.

These are actions you can take to make a direct impact on your community.

So, next time you’re out enjoying the local beach, fishing from the dock, or kayaking downstream, you can know that your actions are making a difference in the places you live and play.

Any notes?

Producer: Less awkward.

[Ami laughs] – Okay.

I’m here at Starkweather Creek to learn more about– Never mind, sorry.