Here’s a good summary of the ‘State of the Lake” report given at the Flathead Lakers annual meeting . . .
The bad news about Flathead Lake is that primary productivity, or the lake’s ability to grow algae, climbed back above 100 grams of carbon per square meter per year in 2012, exceeding the water quality target of 80.
“The good news is that the decline in dissolved oxygen at the bottom of the lake isn’t getting any worse,” Flathead Lake Biological Station director Jack Stanford reported in his annual State of the Lake report at the Flathead Lakers’ annual meeting.
Nitrogen, a nutrient that contributes to algae growth, is increasing, Stanford said, but the increased nitrogen means that algae growth is now being limited by the amount of phosphorus coming into the lake.