{"id":8281,"date":"2023-09-02T14:50:32","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T14:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/?p=8281"},"modified":"2023-09-04T15:12:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T15:12:28","slug":"who-is-monitoring-water-level-in-sandy-lake-2sep2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2023\/09\/02\/who-is-monitoring-water-level-in-sandy-lake-2sep2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is monitoring water level in Sandy Lake? 2Sep2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8282\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8282\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8282\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/WaterLevel.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8282\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spotted on Sandy Lake<br \/><em>Click on image for larger version<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>UPDATE\u00a0 Sep 4, 2023: There is still &#8211; a month and more after the Big Precipitation Events &#8211;\u00a0 a lot of water being held back by the <em>intact<\/em> landscape. See <a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2023\/09\/02\/who-is-monitoring-water-level-in-sandy-lake-2sep2023\/#below\">below<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Sandy Lake fan and top <a href=\"https:\/\/inaturalist.ca\/places\/sandy-lake-bedford\">Sandy Lake iNaturalist<\/a> reporter Sybil Nunn recently spotted the red-topped post at right in the water at Sandy Lake, just below the big parking lot.<\/p>\n<p>She wondered what it&#8217;s for and speculated it&#8217;s for monitoring water levels.\u00a0 That seems logical as there was massive flooding of the lake and many low areas withon in the Sandy Lake watershed in late July and early August and further downstream in Bedford. Two residents close to Sandy Lake estimated that the lake rose 5-6 ft above previous levels, and said it only started to come down a couple of weeks back.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps there is <em>now<\/em> some effort now being made to determine how significant the Sandy Lake sub-watershed is in reducing flooding downstream- and how proposed new development on up to 56% of the subwatershed area might increase the flooding. Inexplicably, the impact of possible new development of lands by Sandy Lake should have been modelled as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.halifax.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/business\/planning-development\/FinalReport.SRFS_.Phase2_.12April2017.pdf\">Sackville Rivers Floodplains Study<\/a> (2017). But it wasn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>What we do know is that all that precipitation earlier this summer had significant effects on lake chemistry\/water quality (see <a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2023\/09\/02\/sandy-lake-bedford-ns-limnological-profiles-reveal-freshening-and-oxygenation-of-the-water-column-after-extreme-rain-events-and-a-worrisome-metalimnion-oxygen-minimum-2sep2023\/\">last post<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, the opposite happened when in August, the water level dropped precipitously. Coincidentally or not (I think not), there was a massive but short lived algal bloom which made the lake un-swimmable &#8211; see Post <a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2019\/08\/07\/sandy-lake-inundated-by-unpleasant-suspended-reddish-soapy-material-aug-6-2019\/#possible\">Aug 7, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So there&#8217;s lots of interest in those water levels!<br \/>\n<a name=\"below\"><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Thx for the report, S.N! &#8216;Will let you know if I learn anything about it!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Update Sep 4, 2023<\/p>\n<p>I was at Sandy Lake Beach Park area yesterday. A few observations:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Sandy Lake water level was still very high and the water very brown:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8294\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8294\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8294\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/MICR0301.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8294\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Click on photos to view larger versions<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8211; In the lower areas of the landscape by streams (we rarely see them in the uplands), there was still a lot of water being held in and moving through, floodplain areas:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-8296\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1-300x192.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1-300x192.jpg 300w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1-1024x655.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1-768x491.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07816-1.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; There clearly had been massive water flow along the old forestry roads, and associated <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rill\">rill erosion<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07811.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-8297\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07811-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07811-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07811-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07811.jpg 1125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Within intact forest a little higher up, there was no sign of disruption (e.g. rill erosion) from the heavy rain events:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-8298\" src=\"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/DSC07787_1500Intact.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All of which shows there is still &#8211; a month and more after the Big Precipitation Events &#8211;\u00a0 a lot of water being held back by the <em>intact<\/em> landscape.<\/p>\n<p>It would be difficult,\u00a0 if at all possible, to replace large portions of <em>this<\/em> landscape with settled areas and NOT greatly increase volume and speed of runoff during extreme precipitation events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE\u00a0 Sep 4, 2023: There is still &#8211; a month and more after the Big Precipitation Events &#8211;\u00a0 a lot of water being held back by the intact landscape. See below &#8212;&#8212;&#8212; Sandy Lake fan and top Sandy Lake iNaturalist &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/2023\/09\/02\/who-is-monitoring-water-level-in-sandy-lake-2sep2023\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water-quality","category-watershed"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8281"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8304,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281\/revisions\/8304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/sandylakebedford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}