Pennsylvania Lake Management Society worked with Gov. Rendell on a proclamation designing July as Pennsylvania Lakes Awareness Month.

Pennsylvania has at least 3,956 lakes and reservoirs located within its boundaries. At least 215 of these are publicly accessible lakes, with a variety of public uses ranging from water supply for municipal, industrial or agricultural uses to recreational pursuits ranging from fishing to swimming and boating. Other uses range from flood control to the purely aesthetic.

Lakes are valuable to the population living around and using them for recreational pursuits, but are often neglected by the general population concerned with water quality. The North American Lake Management Society also sponsors an annual event to draw attention to the importance of lakes and reservoirs, an annual Lakes Awareness Week.

The Pennsylvania Lake Management Society is a citizens’group formed to promote understanding and management of lakes and reservoirs and their watersheds in Pennsylvania. The group provides support and technical advice to local lake property owners and groups through various means ranging from an annual conference to informational fact sheets and a website.

PALMS works with Department of Environmental Protection’s Citizens’ Volunteer Monitoring Program for the past six years in developing a lake monitoring program for local lake groups.

At least 33 Pennsylvania lakes have been monitored by 100 citizen volunteers following training by both DEP and PALMS instructors. PALMS has also assisted the CVMP program by presenting day-long hands-on training workshops in lake management techniques and equipment handling at different lake locations across the state.

Private lake groups interested in enrolling in the 2008 CVMP program should contact Cheryl Snyder, CVMP Coordinator in DEP’s Bureau of Watershed Management at 717-772-5640.

PALMS is also a partner of the Pennsylvania Consortium for Watershed Assistance providing program management and scientific assistance in the area of lake management. The C-SAW program is funded by a Growing Greener grant to the Pocono Northeast Resource Conservation Trust for the PA Resource Conservation and Development Council.

The Lakes Awareness Month also overlaps with The Great American Secchi Dip-In. This year’s Dip-In is occurring from June 23 to July 15. The Dip-In is sponsored by the North American Lake Management Society and U.S. EPA’s Clean Lakes Program and the Volunteer Monitoring Program. It organizes citizen volunteers in existing lake monitoring programs to measure water transparency with a Secchi disk.

The Dip-In is a chance for volunteers to think and contribute nationally by taking a measurement in their local environment. Collected data are compiled at Kent State University at the above website. Regional lake transparency trends are reported on a color map. The Dip-In website also collects data throughout the year. This data will be used to study seasonal variability.

For more information, visit the Pennsylvania Lake Management Society website.

7/13/2007