Proposed Paradise Lake management plan

Abstract

The Paradise Lake Improvement Board contracted the University of Michigan Biological Station to perform field- and laboratory analyses in the summer of 2017 with the goal of identifying and understanding the appearance of a nuisance sediment in the Southeast Basin of Paradise Lake (Emmet Co., MI). Microscopic examination of the material found that it was comprised primarily of coarse- and fine organic material. Specifically, fragments of Myriophyllum sp. (Eurasian Watermilfoil) and filamentous algae known to be epiphytic on Myriophyllum sp. (Mougeotia sp., Oedogonium sp., and Spirogyra sp.). A comprehensive suite of trace metal isotopes and organic stable isotopes (92 isotopic ratios in total) were run on samples (32) of sediment and plant material collected from throughout the lake. Hierarchical Cluster Analysis was used to explore cladistic relationships between samples. Modelling found that, among all possible comparisons, the strongest relationship in the entire dataset was exhibited between samples of detached Myriophyllum sp. which were taken from the NW basin of the lake and the nuisance sediment collected along the shore of the SE basin. Exploration of these same trace metals as well as nutrient- and other physico-chemical parameters in water samples collected concurrently with sediment- and plant samples suggests that suspended and dissolved material is transported from the NW basin (where parameters are substantially elevated above the relatively undisturbed E basin) and well into the SE basin.