The Province Lake Secchi Club is Formed!

Published Online to Public: May 18, 2021
Updated, as noted below: July 15, 2021 and February 26, 2022

February 26, 2022 Update:
The Province Lake Secchi Club got off to a slow start in 2021 for 3 reasons:

  1. It was only created on May 18, when boating season had already begun.
  2. For whatever reason, if you ordered the necessary equipment, it took a very long time to receive it. I believe it took 6 weeks to receive my Secchi disc.
  3. For those few who were eventually ready to proceed, good weather did not correspond with their remaining available boating time.
The good news is that it is still winter as I post this, so you have plenty of time to get some gear and get ready to take readings this boating season. It's another great excuse to get out on the lake, in case you want or need one!

Water transparency is a measure of how deep you can see into the water, based on the visibility of a black-and-white Secchi disc that is slowly lowered into the water until it disappears, then raised until it reappears.

Secchi disc
The Secchi disc is a water quality testing method that gives immediate results, needing no laboratory tests, electronics, or even batteries. It is an old but effective technique that is still actively used around the world, meaning that long term trends can be analyzed and different water bodies can be compared. It provides the ultimate in social distancing, as it can be done alone or with only the members of a household, on the open water with no one else around. Anyone with access to a boat and the necessary equipment can do it with just a little self-training and practice.

Secchi video
At left is one training video that was recommended. It shows you the basics of taking a Secchi depth measurement without the use of a viewscope. A VERY detailed 1-page technique sheet based on Bob Craycraft's long experience can be DOWNLOADED HERE or read online HERE

 

Secchi disc readings were taken at Province Lake during all water sampling events as part of both the New Hampshire Volunteer Lake Assessment Program (VLAP) and later, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Lakes Lay Monitoring Program (LLMP). During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, all water sampling was cancelled, primarily because routine water quality analysis was considered non-essential, so was not being conducted by the extremely limited lab personnel available at UNH.

The Province Lake Secchi Club is being formed for 3 reasons:

  1. To allow the general Province Lake community to become more involved in measuring the water quality of the lake, not leaving the efforts entirely up to a few very dedicated individuals in the Province Lake Association (PLA) and at UNH.
    2.  
  2. To help ensure that there is water quality data collected every year, despite circumstances.
    3.  
  3. To create a far more detailed dataset by sampling much more than once per month, as was done 1991-2019. Additional data will be collected on weather conditions and boat traffic to see how those affect Secchi readings. A more detailed dataset might be useful to those analyzing what conditions correlate to cyanobacteria blooms in the lake.

The resulting data will be shared with VLAP, LLMP, and anyone else who wants it.

The Province Lake Secchi Club is a stand-alone entity, created by being posted on this website, with no affiliation with any other organization. It has no legal status and all participants are fully responsible for their own equipment, actions, and safety. The core technical elements of the Secchi disc procedure were provided by Bob Craycraft of UNH, who is the primary contact for LLMP activities at Province Lake. Bob also provided directions for making your own Secchi disc and much of the information about where to buy equipment. Creation of this club without Bob's help would have been unlikely, but he bears no responsibility for the Club or the actions of its volunteer participants.

This being a club, it is not just me. In fact, I do not own a motorboat, so I can gather no data on my own. My role will be to receive, organize, analyze, and report on the data. It will be up to YOU to obtain your own equipment and use it.

To that end, here is what Bob Craycraft said about making equipment:
"There are directions available HERE should residents desire to create their own Secchi Disks or viewscopes. I have seen Secchi Disks made of various materials but the key feature should be that the disk is 20 cm [8 inches] in diameter and the alternating quadrants should be painted with flat black and flat white paint. In terms of a viewscope, we prefer tubes with the plexiglass plate at the end, as we have found that ripples can obscure readings when a plexiglass plate is lacking."

It is certainly much less work, but maybe a few more bucks, to just buy your equipment. Bob directs us to this NALMS web page for 10 possible sources. From other experience, I know Forestry Suppliers to be a reputable firm, but I have no prior knowledge about the others on the list.

Whether you decide to make or buy, it will be interesting and worth your while to read "Considerations in Secchi Disk Design" on the NALMS web site first.

Aquascope II
Secchi discs will be easier to find than viewscopes. Since you would have your own viewscope, you and your family could use it to look at other things underwater for fun, so it would not be an expense just for use with the Secchi Club. If you are a Weed Watcher on Province Lake, you may also find the viewscope useful if you come across any submerged plants of concern. Hopefully, either will be sufficient motivation for you to "go for it".

Fieldmaster Aquaview
Science First lists the Aquavue Underwater Viewer for about $52 (this item may be available for less money through other vendors). While coding this page, I went ahead and ordered myself a viewscope and Secchi kit from Science First. I found the "AquaScope II" only at Geneq and at Dynamic Aqua Supply , both in Canada, but maybe you could find it elsewhere. Bob says both of these name-brand viewscopes have an angled plexiglass plate and padding around the opening to cushion one's head and minimize any sunlight intrusion. The angled plexiglass is further intended to reduce the impact of any reflections should light get though the opening.

If you wanted to get equipment and share it with friends in the Club, you could do that.

There are 2 documents you will need to download to get going on making and submitting Secchi depth measurements: the procedure and the datasheet. If you can print double-sided, these documents are designed to each fit on a single sheet of paper, for your convenience. The detailed technique sheet previously mentoned is also highly recommended.

DOWNLOAD Secchi Measurement Procedure PDF DOWNLOAD Secchi Measurement Datasheet PDF

July 15, 2021 Update:
When Michael Gauthier joined the Club, he thought we should also offer an electronically-fillable PDF datasheet that would not require printing. Great idea! I sent him the source file and he converted it. You can download it below. To aid in data management, if you are using the PDF Fillable Form Datasheet, your first action should be to save the file under a new filename with the captain's name and the observation date, e.g, "rsmith_6-9-2021.pdf". Then proceed with your trip. Afterwards, email your file as described in the instructions. For that matter, if you are scanning and emailing in a paper datasheet, you should use the same convention for naming your scan file.

July 15, 2021 Update: DOWNLOAD Electronically-Fillable Secchi Measurement Datasheet PDF

If you have any questions, or to let me know you will participate in the Seccchi Club, please email me at province-lake-water@cox.net .

Thanks for your interest,
Norm Dudziak, P.E., I.M.


NOTE: This club is being started on Province Lake, but other lakes are welcome to copy the concept and documents. The material is copyrighted here, but permission is hereby granted to copy and modify the text by organizations or individuals on any other lake besides Province Lake, PROVIDED the following conditions are met: (1) Send an email to province-lake-water@cox.net stating your intent and providing a link to your web page for your Secchi club, and (2) On your web page, you acknowledge "The Province Lake Secchi Club" as the original source of your material and provide a link back to this page. No material payment is requested or expected. Regardless of the success of this particular club, it would be nice to see the concept succeed elsewhere.



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