by Dave Cole

Dave Cole is a BTWF Board member and a Silver Lake homeowner. He recently retired after 30 years with Hewlett-Packard in marketing/sales and customer service. Dave has lived all over the world, including 30 years in the Loveland area
 

Silver Lake, one of many similar small irrigation reservoirs within the Big Thompson Watershed, has over the last 30 years, experienced a transition from serving primarily agricultural irrigation needs to the point today where it is a recreational lake for Silver Lake homeowners. However, the Silver Lake homeowners are but one of several stakeholders in the lake's use and ecology. Others include the City of Loveland, the Louden Ditch Company, the Barnes Ditch Company, and indirectly, the reservoirs downstream of Silver Lake including Boyd Lake, which serves as a drinking water source for the City of Greeley.

During the late 1990s, two major ecological events drove home to the Silver Lake homeowners the fact that their lake was ecologically "out of balance." In 1997, the lake experienced a serious fish kill! Tens of thousands of fish, all sizes, all species, died over a period of a few days. Six pickup loads of fish were removed from the lake over a two-day period by the homeowners. Then, in 1998, a major algae bloom discolored the lake and temporarily destroyed its aesthetic value. These two events signaled to the homeowners that they could no longer take a passive approach to the ecology of their lake.

Members of the Silver Lake Board of Directors started looking for help. That help came in the form of the Big Thompson Watershed Forum. Reacting to an article in the Loveland Reporter Herald describing the activities of Thompson Valley High School students monitoring Big Thompson River water quality, members of the Silver Lake Board of Directors contacted Rob Buirgy and were immediately introduced to the Forum. Members began to attend Forum Board and General Assembly meetings in an attempt to become water quality literate and to establish relationships with those who might be able to give direction. During these many contacts, Silver Lake representatives described the conditions at Silver Lake and suggested that Silver Lake's situation might be but a precursor to the future facing many similar lakes within the watershed.
 Silver Lake in Loveland, Colorado

The Forum, looking for a way to assist the Silver Lake ecology efforts, and thereby assist other similar lakes, asked the Silver Lake homeowners to come up with a proposal as to how the Forum could help. A small team of homeowners and Forum members did just that, their proposal was accepted, and work began.

The Small Lake Focus Group consists of nine members, and two technical advisors:

Bill Watry, Forum member, Silver Lake BOD president.
Paul Tungesvick, Co-chair, Forum member, Silver Lake BOD.
Ellen Huber, Forum member, CSU graduate student. Master's thesis topic: Silver Lake Source Water Assessment.
Ripley Heintz, Forum member, High Plains Environmental Center Director.
Jan Harrison, Forum member, Storm Water Advisor.
Keith Hancock, Forum member, CH Diagnostics.
Dave Cole, Co-chair, Forum BOD member, Silver Lake homeowner.
Rob Buirgy, Forum Coordinator, mapping advisor.
Nick Bezzerides, Forum member, CSU graduate student, riparian zone advisor.

The two technical advisors are:

Ed Young, Forum BOD member, City of Greeley Water.
Larry Howard, Forum member, City of Loveland Water.

The team has outlined an approach for achieving its objectives, and several actions are currently underway including:

1. A morphological study of Silver Lake (mapping, water volume, water budget, and lake classification)

2. A homeowner ecological survey

3. A Silver Lake Source Water Assessment

All actions of the Small Lake Focus Group are being recorded to create an educational manual for use by other watershed lakes.

Obviously, the homeowners of Silver Lake, or of any similar watershed lake, could not have gained access to such a powerful collection of water quality experience and skills without the support of the Forum. The Forum is an outstanding source of water quality experts willing to give assistance to private groups in need. It goes without saying that given Silver Lake's 45 homeowners, there is a diversity of opinions concerning sources of the lake's ecological problems and how to address those problems. The Small Lake Focus Group, through the Forum's sponsorship, is finally getting a structured improvement approach enabling us to replace opinions with assessment and analysis. And the Silver Lake homeowners are very grateful for the timely assistance. In time, other lake organizations within our watershed will likewise harvest the benefits of this unique Forum initiative.