We Got Poo

[Tom Spence]

Well said.

[motoman]

Makes perfect sense. It's all out of balance. You can't find a single person that thinks the Lake Ozark experience (or atmosphere) has improved with age.

Everyone I know (even the ones doing the "developing") will openly tell you that they believe the area, and the lake itself is going to hell in a handbasket in every catagory that should matter....but yet they keep right on building and developing. Just blows my mind

There are all kinds of empty buildings and abandoned lots in excellent business locations that could be renovated...but instead they will bulldoze a point or nice woodlot and spend 10 times more money....just to go belly up and sell at a considerable loss in 3 years or less.

Makes me wonder if these hotshot entrapunuer guru's are just creating projects to launder funds through...or if they are pre-planning strategic bankruptcys. Whatever the true intentions are, they are leaving one hell of a mess behind them.

ok, rant over. all better now LOL

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I agree wrench, very well said.

-

Not to open another can of worms, but how (or who?) could be the one(s) to put a halt to all the development/try and reclaim the lakes natural beauty?

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It seems like things down there are like a runaway freight train.............tough to stop.

[fishinwrench]

LOWA Public Meeting

E COLI: WHAT IS IT? HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME?

Come Learn How E. coli May Affect Your Lake

Monday, July 13, 6:30 PM

Tan-Tar-A

Crystal Ballroom

Sponsored By LOWA

Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance

Come and Hear:

Eddy Hendricks, Department of

Health and Senior Services:

"Understanding E coli and our lake"

"Swimmers’ Safety Tips"

-Dan Sabourin RN, MBA Lake Regional Hospital:

"Infection Control Data"

Earl Pabst DNR Deputy Division Director

"Overview of LOZ 5 year Study"

Steve Fischer US Army Corp of Engineers

Kansas City District

"Bacteria Testing Overview of Missouri Corp Lakes"

BREAK

COMMITTEE REPORTS

ROUNDTABLE- An opportunity for your voice to be heard; join the discussion, ask questions, voice concerns, get involved.

ADJOURN

[eric1978]

I know this is an older thread but I thought I'd add something to it.

When I was going to college at Mizzou about 5-6 years ago, a friend of mine there went down to the lake on a field trip for some class (not sure which). They were dumping some kind of neon green eco-friendly dye in the toilets of some of the houses around the lake to test the integrity of their systems. He said within MINUTES the dye was visible in the lake. Nasty. It doesn't keep me out of the water, though. You probably have a better chance at getting e.coli from the door handle in a public restroom than you do in the LOZ. Even though I know it's irrational, I feel like the water in the channels is pretty clean, but when I look down at the water in some of the coves I see nothing but pee and poo. Just swim with duct tape over your lips.

[fishinwrench]

I've heard of the dye tests, and you are right. There isn't enough "earth" between the septic laterals and the shoreline to filter out the wastewater. And with more and more homes becoming year'round dwellings vs. strictly Summer/vacation homes it has gotten worse and worse.

When I was a kid this water was clear/blueish-green, beds of Milfoil, Hydrilla, and Lilly pads provided good fish cover, along with some docks, stumps and brush, this place was beautiful. By my twenty's the water had turned a shade of dark-green (the color of a clay bottomed farm pond) aquatic vegetation was scarce but present in certain spots.

Now that I'm in my 40's the water is taking on more of a brownish tint, there is no aquatic vegetaion anywhere that I am aware of, and regardless of the reported "ok" surface water testing I'm convinced in my own mind that E-coli levels are off the charts BELOW THE SURFACE. And frequent transfusions of slightly better water from Truman and the Nianguas only improve the surface layer slightly, it cannot scour the bottom of all the settled sludge.

Enter Zebra mussels,... maybe they will flourish until they are no longer needed, a balance will be reached, and then their numbers will decline along with their food source. Anything that can reduce the amount of solids in the water HAS to help.

Hopefully by letting Mother Nature do her thing....it'll all work out. Last year during the fall turnover there was a wicked stench in the air (off and on, depending on the wind) for more than a week ...It smelled like you were standing between a hog farm and a truckload of burnt popcorn (best way I know how to describe it) LOL

I live here and work on the lake and I'm not really "afraid" to get in the water, but I don't let my kids swim in it, and I don't jump in unless I have to. My family and I do our swimming, watersports, and most all of our fishing elsewhere. But that's for more reasons than just the pollution factor.

[eric1978]

It's such a shame, too, because it really is a great lake. A buddy and I are seriously considering buying a cheap place on a lake somewhere just to take our new families for easy vacations. We both live in St. Louis, so of course our first instinct is LOZ. It has something that none of the other reservoirs have, maybe just a comfort level because it's so familiar. But maybe it's the population that makes it so comfortable and familiar, and that also happens to be the cause of the decline of the quality of the lake. What can you do? Without a bunch of new laws that will make current residents go insane, I don't see any drastic improvements coming in the near future.

[Flysmallie]

When I was a kid this water was clear/blueish-green, beds of Milfoil, Hydrilla, and Lilly pads provided good fish cover, along with some docks, stumps and brush, this place was beautiful. By my twenty's the water had turned a shade of dark-green (the color of a clay bottomed farm pond) aquatic vegetation was scarce but present in certain spots.

Now that I'm in my 40's the water is taking on more of a brownish tint, there is no aquatic vegetaion anywhere that I am aware of, and regardless of the reported "ok" surface water testing I'm convinced in my own mind that E-coli levels are off the charts BELOW THE SURFACE. And frequent transfusions of slightly better water from Truman and the Nianguas only improve the surface layer slightly, it cannot scour the bottom of all the settled sludge.

Wrench, it seems like the same thing happened at Pomme de Terre. 15 to 20 years ago there was a lot of vegetation then gradually most if not all of it disappeared. I use to love fishing that stuff. I would have liked to fish LOZ when there was grass in it. I wonder what caused all that stuff to die off?

[eric1978]

Wrench, it seems like the same thing happened at Pomme de Terre. 15 to 20 years ago there was a lot of vegetation then gradually most if not all of it disappeared. I use to love fishing that stuff. I would have liked to fish LOZ when there was grass in it. I wonder what caused all that stuff to die off?

Pennzoil

[fishinwrench]

Wrench, it seems like the same thing happened at Pomme de Terre. 15 to 20 years ago there was a lot of vegetation then gradually most if not all of it disappeared. I use to love fishing that stuff. I would have liked to fish LOZ when there was grass in it. I wonder what caused all that stuff to die off?

Winter drawdown. Pulling the lake level down during Winter exposes the shoreline and freezes it which always killed the milfoil down to 5-6ft. But when the water was clearer the aquatic weeds grew deeper than that in spots....so they were able to "come back" each year. I guess the reduced clarity compounded by the winter drawdown totally eliminated ALL the weeds.

They also used to spray something that smelled like diesel fuel along the shoreline around the resorts, either to kill mosquito's or kill weeds, not sure what that was all about, but they don't do it anymore.

If anyone remembers when there was milfoil on LO, there was an inside and outside edge to them, they never grew right up to the bank. And the fish used to LOVE those inside weed edges in the early Summer. We'd cast a spinnerbait, Moss Boss or inline bucktail buzzbait over the weedbeds to the bank, and there was 10-20 foot of clean gravel before the weedbeds. The fish would blow up on the bait right at the weed edge and you'd have to "hoss him" over the strip of weeds into the open water ....it was a blast ! I wish we'd had Sluggo's or Horny Toads back then

We even used to catch the occasional Pike, Pickerel, or Muskie (we called them Pike, but didn't know the difference back then) and I haven't heard of anyone catching either from this lake in a LONG long time.

As a kid I used to walk the banks with a texas rigged Smitty's Special "grasshopper" colored 6"ringworm (fishing that inside weed edge) and literally kill'em. Docks were spotty and not near as close together.

The bass fishing on LO was awesome back then....but the Crappie and catfishing sucked compared to what it is now, and I didn't even see my first White Bass until I was almost 20.

So things evolve I guess, some naturally and some because of the impact of humans. It's sad though when you remember, or even just see pictures from back in the 60's and 70's...God this place was gorgeous. Everyone wanted to be here, now they are...and this is the result.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The difference in table Rock is hard to fathom unless you fished it in the 70's. Up until the 90's 6 and 8 lb line were required, now its not all that much clearer than parts of Truman.