CLEAN LAKES ALLIANCE: Near Shore Water Quality Monitoring

Clean Lakes Alliance will run a program to increase near-shore water quality monitoring in the Madison Lakes in 2015 to help with beach closure timeliness, and improve ability of the public to make decisions about swimming. They will recruit, train and equip lifeguards or volunteers monitor a minimum of 6 and up to a maximum of 16 public beaches, with a focus on once per week E. coli sampling. In addition, up to 44 citizen volunteers will do weekly end-of-pier assessments of turbidity, temperature and blue green algae presence. Samples will be collected and delivered to the city-county health lab. Data will be analyzed and shared with researchers at UW Madison who are interested in modeling algae blooms within near-shore areas, and made available to the public on a mobile-ready website. Also, a community presentation will be given at the end of the season to discuss findings and recommendations, and a final report, including raw data, will be submitted to the department.

Final Report and Products

• 2015 Yahara Lakes 101 Presentation [PDF 2 MB]
• CLA 2015 Beach Samples Collected in 2015
• Citizen Monitoring Final Report [Yahara Chain of Lakes] [PDF 190 KB]
• Lakeforecast.org [Website]
• Near-shore Monitoring Data [Yahara Chain] [ 131 KB]
• Site Locations [Yahara Chain]
• Sites Map [Yahara Chain] [JPG 1 MB]
• Weekly E. coli sampling results [Yahara Chain]

People/Organizations Involved

• Clean Lakes Alliance