Bear Lake Watch Accomplishments and Results

                                      Accomplishments and Results 2022

By Bryce Nielson

When I first heard about Bear Lake Watch (BLW), I thought that it was an exclusive group of lakeshore property owners who were worried about what they saw when they looked out of their windows at the lake.  After a few years, I decided to find out for myself, so I volunteered to serve on the Board with the hope that I could provide insight into  the history and scientific ecology of Bear Lake.

I quickly found out that Bear Lake Watch is committed to serving as an advocate on behalf of Bear Lake with the goal of keeping the lake CLEAN, DEEP and BLUE. What I also found out, however, was that securing funding for the operation of a non-profit organization like BLW is always going to be a challenge. Intuitively, I knew that for BLW to be successful, we needed to learn more about Bear Lake’s ecosystem and focus our efforts on addressing the challenges we discovered.  Unfortunately, I learned that one of the biggest challenges BLW faced was the fact that there was limited money available to operate the organization and to also fund scientific studies.

To successfully raise money for both, a citizens’ group organization like BLW must not only do the work, it must also keep the public informed on what they are doing by reporting on what has been accomplished.  BLW is rightfully proud of its efforts to date.   BLW’s Executive Directors David and Claudia Cottle deserve much of the credit for the accomplishments of BLW, the success of BLW’s fund raising efforts on behalf of the Scientific Research Committee wouldn’t have been possible without the vision of one of BLW’s board members and the generosity and hard work of a lot of people who care deeply about the future of Bear Lake. 

About ten years ago, BLW board member Phil Olsen and members of the Olsen family organized the first Merlin Olsen Summer Classic, a golf tournament at Bear Lake West in memory of Phil’s brother Merlin.  From its beginning, the Merlin Olsen Summer Classic has been dedicated to raising money specifically for the funding of scientific studies on and around Bear Lake.  To date, the MOSC has cleared  $529,670 for use in funding scientific research.   Additional financial contributions have been secured from partners like USGS, PacifiCorp, Idaho and Utah DEQ’s, Bear River Commission and Bear Lake NWR, which has brought the total value of the projects that have been funded to $1,077,562.  Of that amount, BLW has invested $224,922 and our partners have invested $847,639, which converts to a 4.79:1 match.  Bear Lake Watch has $304,747 in remaining funds for future studies. Our hope is to leverage that remaining amount in BLW’s Scientific Research Fund into at least another $1,000,000 of additional projects.

While these numbers are impressive, the results are even more  remarkable.  I want to highlight some of what BLW has recently accomplished.

Water Quality Profiling and Weather Monitoring Platforms

Prior to 2018, intensive sampling of the water chemistry of the lake had not been done in many years.  We needed to know what was occurring with water quality in the Lake in terms of nutrients to determine whether Bear Lake was being hurt by fertilizer runoff, leaking holding tanks and quality of the water running into it from the Bear River.  The study was conducted and partially funded by the United States Geologic Service (USGS).  PacifiCorp, Idaho and Utah DEQ, and BLW provided the rest of the funding.  The study was started in 2018 and will be completed in the Fall of 2022.  Two floating platforms were outfitted with sampling devices that took scientific measurements from the surface to the bottom of the lake four times a day. Things like dissolved oxygen, pH, dissolved solids, chlorophyll, water temperature and other parameters were quantified. Weather data was also collected and compiled every five minutes.  This robust data set collected from five different lake locations and compared to the “control” location off North Eden is providing a much better understanding of what is actually occurring in Bear Lake. 

Approximately $730, 000 has been expended on the project to date.

Nutrient, Suspended Sediments and Total Dissolved Solids at the Bear Lake Causeway

Most people have observed the discoloration of the water at the north end of the lake during Spring runoff.  That discoloration is a result of spring flows coming into the Lake and we wanted to know what that flow consisted of and what impact it was having  on the lake. Working with USGS, water quality sampling instruments were placed where the water enters the lake so that the inflow could be analyzed. 

BLW invested $58,100, USGS invested $38,730 

Real Time Lake Elevation Monitoring

For decades, this monitoring was done by Utah Power and Light at Lifton.  In 2019, a state-of-the-art depth gage was installed at the Utah State Marina that provides real time data related to the elevation of Bear Lake. This data provides valuable information to all interested parties.  BLW contributed $6000 to the project. USGS, PacifiCorp, Bear River Commission contributed $22,056

Other Noteworthy Studies/Projects

BLW funded a project with the Quinney Library at USU to compile all the known studies conducted on  Bear Lake and Mud Lake so that the public could assess the information and utilize it.

BLW funded studies on Mud Lake sediments and bathymetry including the  coordination of a LIDAR flight to establish capacities and high-water marks for both Mud Lake and Bear Lake.  These studies cumulated in BLW hosting a Mud Lake Symposium.

In summary, Bear Lake Watch has been and continues to be the leader in generating scientific studies to better understand Bear Lake and to provide accurate and reliable data to state governments, to beneficial users and to the general public. 

Obviously, there is still much left for Bear Lake Watch to do to help protect and preserve Bear Lake.  Public awareness, active involvement and ongoing financial support are imperative to our efforts.  This update serves as an open invitation for you to join with us in these efforts.

To learn more about the work of Bear Lake Watch and/or to make a donation to help keep Bear Lake… Clean… Deep… and Blue go to www.bearlakewatch.com.