10/22/25
Hello and happy Fall neighbors.
I hope that everyone had a good summer around our beautiful Pequaywan lakes and rivers. I know my family sure enjoyed the warm summer days to swim, fish, pontoon ride and sail on Big Pequaywan. In fact, the main reason we purchased our cabin 10 years ago was for the enjoyment of this pristine water. This is also why I have volunteered to help the association and now serve as president; to help keep our waters clean and healthy for the next generations.
I am happy to report that Deb Pomroy & Ray Barnes toured both our lakes recently and found no Aquatic Invasive Species/weeds. Also, lake samples were taken in early October to RMB Labs in the cities for testing and results show that our water is healthy! Phosphorus levels were down a bit from 9.3 ug/L to 7 on Little Pequaywan and from 17 ug/L to 14 on Big Pequaywan which is good news since this is what stimulates excess growth of Algae and lowers dissolved oxygen levels degrading habitat conditions for aquatic life. Thank you for being good stewards of the waters by following best practices to keep Phosphorus levels low by;
not fertilizing grass near the lake, preventing erosion and runoff into the lake with natural shoreline buffers, keeping septic systems in good working order, preventing any boat or trailer to enter our waters that has not been drained, cleaned and quarantined for 14 days and not operating Wake boats on our lakes as they can stir up phosphorus locked up in bottom sediments plus cause shore erosion. Chlorophyll levels were unchanged in Little Pequaywan at 1.8 ug/L and up a bit on Big Pequawan from 5.3 to 7.9 ug/L.
The Trophic State is a common score which rates the health of a lake with the above tests plus the Secchi visibility depths. Scores range from 20 to 100 with a lower score best. Little lake got a score of 34.2 putting it in the best Oligotrophic clear water category. Big Lake was slightly higher with a score of 46.2 putting this water in the Mesotrophic range of moderate water, balanced habitat. This is very similar to the last test results from 2011 so I find this encouraging. Keep up the good work everyone!