Letter from the GLWS President

President’s Letter to Society Members

Our membership director Henry Brander and communications officer Jeremy Crawford have been very active in signing new members and Henry suggested a letter to introduce you to the Society and our current efforts. This includes a brief history of our society and brings you up to date on some of our present activities.

We were informally formed in 1998 and then incorporated as a nonprofit in 2000. Our original name was the Gull Lake Water Quality Management Society and we simplified that to the present name about 7 years ago. We started in 1998 working with Alberta Environment “AEP” to analyze the streams into and the waters of the lake and to monitor changes over time. We continue to work with the Alberta Lake Management Society “ALMS” and AEP on a new analysis of the lake water every two to three years and all results can be found on the ALMS website.

Our main initial objective was to reduce nutrients, primarily phosphorus, coming into the lake which causes the growth of algae and aquatic vegetation. Our initial work found that a number of the streams that flowed into the lake were loaded with agricultural pollutants such as phosphorus and we have undertaken a number of projects, such as settling basins and stream bed protection from livestock and worked with the agricultural community to try to reduce things like manure spreading in winter. These efforts have helped the water quality in the lake to stay reasonably consistent over the years and we have not suffered the algal blooms or beach closures that other lakes have endured.

We maintain records of the lake level back to 1924 and I attach our latest graph. Gull declined dramatically between 1924 and the 1970s and the Lougheed government installed a stabilization system in the 1970s that has held the level since. Unfortunately, in 2010 the province decided to stop paying for the power for the pumps and our GLWS hired Hydrological Consultants Ltd. to undertake a study. That study demonstrated that without the pumping, the lake would resume its old rate of decline. Based on that study, the four municipalities around the lake agreed to pay for the cost of power. We then went through a period of heavy rains and the lake rose above target. In 2017 our society called for a review of the target as the lake seemed better with higher levels in 2014-2016.

Norval Horner
GLWS President