Surface Water Temperature: ~80.6 F
Water Clarity: ~7.6 Feet
Lake Level: 802.9 Feet above sea level
Lake Level Relative to Weir: -0.6 Feet
Observations: Monday (8/8/22), The water clarity was unchanged at ~7.6 feet and the surface water temperature increased ~3.1 F to ~80.6 F over the last week. The lake water temperature is rapidly rising due to the warm weather we have been having. Anytime the surface water temperature gets near or above 80 F it’s an ideal temperature for blue-green algae to reproduce. The lake is stratified at 6 m (19.8 Feet). The lake looked very good today!
There was an increase in visible algae in the water column at most of our HAB monitoring locations compared with a week ago. It looks like green dots in the water column. We did not see any areas with surface algae scum. Lots of Aphanizomenon clumps (picture on left) visible in the water column. Also, Anabaena and Gloeotrichia (pictures below):
The DEC recommends that you, your family, and pets avoid contact with water that contains blue-green algae like Aphanizomenon, Anabaena, and Gloeotrichia. Everyone should be very careful to watch for blue-green algae blooms for the next few weeks.
Today's (Monday 8/8/22) temperature and dissolved oxygen graphs are on the left. The lake is stratified at 6 m (19.8 Feet). You can see this by the divergence of the temperature and dissolved oxygen graph lines for the various depths on the left. Today (Monday 8/8/22) the dissolved oxygen at 7.5 m (~24.75 feet) was only 0.43 mg/L low enough to weaken the phosphorus iron bond releasing phosphorus into the deep bottom water again. About 400 acres of bottom sediment is 7.5 m or deeper. Surface water temperature was ~80.6 F and bottom water temperature was ~72.9 F. 1-meter equals 3.3 feet.
Always use your own visual assessment before making contact with the lake water at this time of year as the blue-green algae situation can change daily if not hourly. Please regularly check the DEC HABs alert map for more detailed updates on Honeoye Lake HABs alerts:
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Why is the lake level so low?
Two Year Honeoye Lake level chart:
2022 YTD Precipitation at the Honeoye Wastewater Treatment Plant:
2022 precipitation (green line) was running very normal (brown line) from January through mid-June. However, we have had almost no significant rain from mid-June through August 8th. This is a very unusual as we are now ~6 inches of rainfall below normal YTD.
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The Town of Richmond has obtained an emergency DEC permit to dredge the shale and sediment deposits out of Mill Creek from just behind the Mill Creek Café to the 20A bridge and under the 20A bridge in the NYS DOT Road right away. Last week (Week of August 1st) they completed their rock installation and reconnected Mill Creek to flow though it’s normal channel. See attached pictures. This project should reduce flooding risk from Mill Creek in the Hamlet and lessen the negative impact Mill Creek is having on the Outlet Creek flow. Richmond is working on a long-range plan to address other stream flow issues in the Outlet Creek and Mill Creek.
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- Click on this link for the Winter 2022 HLWTF Newsletter:
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- Click on this link to see the new HLWTF Honeoye Lake Watershed Storm Water Took Kit if you are planning any storm water projects on your property:
- Click on this link for "Honeoye Lake: 2021 State of the Lake article":
Draft Aeration Planning Project Report, Public Information Meeting Presentation, and WebEx recording posted on the HLWTF web site:
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Click on the blue outlined box that says "Log in / Sign up" in the upper right-hand corner of this page to sign-up to be notified when we update our weekly Honeoye Lake water quality blog.
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