DNR continues water quality meetings

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources continues a series of public meetings to discuss water quality plans for lakes and rivers. The D-N-R’s Danelle Haake says they’ve put together draft plans for the lakes or river called “Total Maximum Daily Loads” or T-M-D-L’s.She says all the waterbodies have been listed on the state’s impaired waters list. She says the T-M-D-L is written to determine what the maximum amount of a pollutant is that can reach the waterbody and still have it meet state water quality standards. Haake says the public meetings let people discuss the T-M-D-L and plans for cleaning up the water. She says “getting from this is what’s wrong with the lake to this is how to fix it is kind of what these documents do.” She says they want the public’s input to see if they have other information that’s different from what the planners have thought. Haake says the D-N-R does what it can to identify problems, but local people often have information that’s been missed. She says there’s some cases where they think there’s a problem from a certain type of source, but the local people may have information that that’s not the problem and maybe it’s something else. Haake says local people can also help confirm problems. She says an example is some waterways that have sediment, and they think it’s related to sediment from gully erosion. She says local people can confirm that there are gullies in the area. The are two meetings tonight for Clear Lake at the Lakeview Community Room at the City Park in Clear Lake at six o’clock. And for Milford Creek at the Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum in Arnolds Park at 6:30 p-m. Tomorrow there’s a meeting for Pierce Creek Lake at one p-m at the Page County Courthouse in Clarinda. And for Lake Macbride at the Solon Library at 5:30. For more information, check out the D-N-R’s website at:www.iowadnr.com.