Summary of Recommendations 



monitoring program designed to docu- 

 ment the impact of these activities on 

 lake water quality. Current water qual- 

 ity monitoring efforts in the Flathead 

 Basin are focused primarily on Flat- 

 head Lake and tributary streams. How- 

 ever, there are a number of smaller lake 

 basins in the area which support sig- 

 nificant timber harvest activities but 

 have litde water quality monitoring 

 information. Lakes in this category 

 which are valued for their water quality 

 and/or fisheries resources include 

 Swan, Whitefish, Ashley, Lake Mary 

 Ronan, and others. We urge immedi- 

 ate emDha.sis on Swan Lake given the 

 recent evidence of oxygen depletion in 

 the lake together with extensive land 

 use activities in the basin. Monitoring 

 efforts should include a combination 

 of in-lake monitoring for documenta- 

 tion of lake conditions as well as up- 

 stream monitoring to document vari- 

 ous source areas including site specific 

 inputs from new activities in the basin. 

 Monitoring activities should in- 

 clude establishment of sediment and 

 nutrient budgets for the basin (for 

 nonpoint sources as well as point 

 sources such as septic systems and 

 wastewater effluent), Secchi depth 

 transparency, phytoplankton abun- 

 dance (chlorophyll o in the lake), as 

 well as dissolved oxygen and tempera- 

 ture profiles. We recommend that seri- 

 ous consideration be given to analysis 

 of additional sediment cores from Swan 

 Lake as well as a sediment core from 

 Bowman Lake which has had no hu- 

 man land disturbance activity. In addi- 

 tion, we recommend development of 

 some simple sediment accumulation 

 monitors (traps) that could be placed at 



key locations in Swan Lake and other 

 lakes of interest. These collection de- 

 vices would serve as continuous moni- 

 tors of sediment delivery into the lake 

 environment. Annual monitoring of 

 sediment accumulation in these traps 

 over a period of years would yield 

 extremely valuable information con- 

 cerning changes in sediment and nutri- 

 ent loadings. These data should be in- 

 tegrated with continuous monitoring 

 of sediment in the streams (see Recom- 

 mendation No. 31). 



21. Additional sediment core analysis in 

 Whitefish Lake, focusing on sediments 

 deposited in the last 30 years, would 

 provide a better understanding of the 

 relative importance of the various fac- 

 tors which could explain the recent 

 reduction in lake sedimentation rate. 

 Sediment core sampling increments of 

 one year or less would allow more 

 definitive conclusions to be drawn 

 about BMP effectiveness. In order to 

 evaluate the potential impact of recent 

 mild runoff years on sedimentation 

 rates, it would be useful to collect addi- 

 tional cores from Whitefish Lake fol- 

 lowing several high runoff years. 



22. Expansion of sediment core analyses 

 to other lakes would expand the appli- 

 cability of conclusions, which at this 

 point come from three lakes in the 

 Flathead Basin. We highly recommend 

 collection of sediment cores from a 

 "control" lake which has had no human 

 disturbance (for example Bowman 

 Lake in Glacier National Park). Other 

 candidate lakes include those found in 

 watersheds supporting past and future 

 logging efforts such as Tally, Ashley, 

 and Flathead Lakes. 



23. Lake sediment analyses should be inte- 



Flathead Basin Cooperative Program Final Report 



Page 161 



