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About Water Quality Committee |
The Water Quality Committee executes LACA's Water Quality Monitoring Program in partnership with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The Program provides data to further LACA’s objectives of preserving, conserving and protecting Lake Anna’s water resources. These data are provided to LACA’s committees (such as the Environmental Preservation Committee), State Agencies, academia and others to analyze potential lake pollution and algae problems of concern to the Lake Anna community. Several Virginia State agencies use LACA's Water Quality Monitoring Program data to develop water quality and health assessments. LACA's data is available online via the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) and is available to the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation (DCR), Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) as well as any other federal, state, academic or commercial agency interested in the quality of Lake Anna's water resource. LACA is proud of our 17-year record of success with this program. LACA is also engaged in multiple partnerships with academic institutions to collect data focused on Lake Anna’s blue-green algae and toxic algal bloom issues. Our current partnerships are with the Schmale Lab, part of the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech and the Environmental Studies Program at Randolph Macon College. We also work closely with the Phytoplankton Analysis Laboratory, part of the Department of Oceanography at Old Dominion University (ODU) and with the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS). DEQ monitors the quality assurance of LACA's Water Quality Monitoring Program through the implementation of several of best practices documented in a Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP). The QAPP addresses data generation and acquisition controls, data assessment and oversight controls, and data review, verification, and validation controls. These controls ensure the data collected and maintained by the LACA volunteers is usable by State, academic and civic organizations conducting studies and analyses of the water quality at Lake Anna. From a historical perspective, water quality monitoring on the lake prior to 2001 was largely limited to quarterly fish surveys, annual toxicity testing, and hourly temperature measurements by Dominion Power. The State Park monitored water quality for swimming during the summer months at its beach on the northeastern shore of the lake. The Virginia DEQ had water quality monitoring stations on streams in the watershed as well as on the lake itself. The York Watershed Council briefly had three monitoring sites on the Lake as well as five sites on its tributaries. LACA's current Water Quality Monitoring program is a huge advancement from what was being accomplished until 2001. We have our volunteers to thank for that. Please consider becoming a Water Quality volunteer. You can reach out to the Committee Co-Chairs or click on the Volunteer link below to send us an email to reach out to our team or to get information on volunteering for this important program. |
