Kelso Selected as Example of a Least-Disturbed Natural Lake
Not only does Geauga Park District have one of the darkest skies in the country at Observatory Park in Montville, Lake Kelso may be one of the most pristine lakes in the nation.
The lake, part of the Burton Wetlands Nature Preserve in Burton Township, was one of more than 900 lakes sampled during the National Lake Assessment last year.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deemed Lake Kelso an example of a least-disturbed natural lake, said Paul Pira, natural resource management director for the park district.
“They used Lake Kelso as the gold standard,” he said. “We were really proud of that. We’ve always thought that lake was special.”
The preserve is part of the Cuyahoga River watershed, as are the lakes and streams connected to Punderson Lake in Newbury Township and Tare Creek that flow through the Middlefield area, he said.
While the park district owns and manages the preserve, the wetlands were dedicated as a state nature preserve in 1999.
The national assessment, started in 2007, was designed to estimate the number of lakes that fall into one of three conditions — good, fair and poor — and issue a report card on the health of lakes across the country, Pira said.
Kelso has a number of characteristics that make it unique, he said.
Besides being unpolluted, the area around the lake is relatively un-developed by people and nurtures tamarack trees, sundew plants and wild cranberry.
“It’s stuff more common in upstate New York or Canada where they have acidic bog lakes,” said Pira, who is also a biologist.
Racket-tail emerald dragonflies, which are endangered in Ohio, can be seen buzzing about the lake’s surface and the plankton community that helps feed the aquatic life is exceptional, he said.
The EPA’s Wheeling office contacted Pira about testing Lake Kelso and the district’s Natural Resource Management Department was able to help the team assigned to take samples and contribute data about the area’s habitat.
The EPA took biological samples, did physical habitat assessments and tested for water quality to determine chemical baseline data such as phosphorous and nitrogen content.
“If you have too much phosphorus and nitrogen, the lake starts to degrade,” Pira said, adding agriculture run-off and failing septic systems are among the prime culprits.
The baseline established now will give the EPA something to measure watershed changes in the future, he said.
It will also provide information to local agencies regarding upstream pollutants.
During a different 2012 project, funded by The Ohio Division of Wildlife and carried out by The Ohio State University, the district provided assistance so the team of OSU biologists could check the lake for rare fish species that would be found in glacial pothole lakes.
“We were able to confirm the presence of lake chubsucker fish; which is an Ohio Threatened Species, in Lake Kelso,” Pira said.
The EPA’s final report will go to U.S. Congress, which has directed the EPA to uphold the nation’s water quality standards set by the Clean Water Act passed in the 1970s.
Both the City of Akron and the Ohio chapter of the Nature Conservancy — both of which own large parts of the surrounding Cuyahoga watershed — and the Western Reserve Land Conservancy are in favor of protecting this area in its natural state, Pira said.
“The EPA will start feeding us data in the fall and an official report in 2014,” he said. “They plan to come back in five years and sample the lake to ascertain if there have been any changes in the watershed.”
