Bull Shoals water quality earns top marks in report
Bull Shoals Lake earned top marks in Ozarks Water Watch’s recently released 10th annual “Status of the Watershed Report.”
The report, a summary of data from 12 monitoring projects, is designed to answer the question, “How’s the water?” in the Upper White River basin in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. A chart in the report compares data collected from Beaver Lake Sub-basin, Bull Shoals Lake Sub-basin, James River Sub-basin, Table Rock (excluding James River) and Taneycomo Sub-basin.
Organizers stressed that the chart shows highest and lowest relative water quality among the sub-basins without specifically defining what is good and bad water quality. With that condition given, the chart shows three relative categories of water quality: green for high quality, yellow for mid quality and red for low.
Of the five sub-basins compared, Bull Shoals was the only one with all-green ratings in all six data groups comparing dissolved oxygen, lake water clarity, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, E. coli bacteria and invertebrates.
The report targets erosion as one of the top current concerns, calling it “an insidious process that robs us of land, destroys streambanks and shorelines, all while carrying nutrients and other chemicals into our water.”
It lists several suggests for how area residents can do their part to prevent erosion, both on their own property and in supporting government-sponsored remedies.
See the complete report at ozarkswaterwatch.org.