The Virginia General Assembly included $3.5 million in the state's FY23-FY24 budget to fund studies focused on the Harmful Algae Blooms (HABs) in Lake Anna and the Shenandoah River.  The funding is included in part B.1 of item 374 in the Budget Bill (House Bill 30).  The wording in Item 374 of the Budget Bill is as follows:  "$3,500,000 shall be provided to the Department of Environmental Quality, collaborating with the Department of Health, to conduct studies of Harmful Algal Blooms occurring in the Shenandoah River and Lake Anna."

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is working with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to execute the funding and complete the study in both Lake Anna and the Shenandoah River.  You can keep track of DEQ's efforts on their HAB page.

The different projects being executed by DEQ and USGS in the lake and in the Lake Anna watershed are highlighted in the chart below.  There are several water quality continuous monitoring stations deployed in Lake Anna for this study.  Three are located in the lake and two are located upstream in the North Anna River and Pamunkey Creek.  USGS provides public access to the data collected by these stations.  Each station reports data every 15 minutes.  The current plan is to keep the continuous monitoring stations deployed through the 2024 recreational season.

Links to the data feeds for each of the five continuous monitoring stations are provided below.

Lake monitoring stations:

• Upper-North Anna River: Lake Anna - N. Anna Branch
• Mid-Pamunkey Creek: Lake Anna - Pamunkey Branch 
• Mid-North Anna River (between the splits and the 208 bridge): Lake Anna - Splits (most down-lake) 

Tributary stream monitoring stations:

• North Anna River 
• Pamunkey Creek