Save Weiss Lake citizens group wants to determine extent of silt problem

The Latest Local News from the Rome News

A citizens group is trying to determine the extent of a siltation problem at Weiss Lake.

Tom Taylor, president of the group Save Weiss Lake , said siltation contributes to poor water quality and there have been no accurate measurements in the past three or four decades to accurately determine how bad the problem might be.

Sand bars and other areas of sedimentation often manifest themselves by catching debris that comes downstream during periods of high water, and that debris can be extremely dangerous to the props on ski boats or pontoon boats.

Taylor expects the group to start its analysis near Cedar Bluff, Alabama .

Taylor said the group is nearly certain silt is choking off some of the back bays off the main channel of the Coosa River.

“When you have all those entrances (to the channel) being silted in, the pollution level becomes significant, especially in drought situations,” Taylor said. “What we’re trying to do is determine how bad.”

Old maps with faulty depth data on the lake have also been discovered, Taylor said.

The group’s water quality director, Jack Taylor, donated a $2,000 piece of equipment that allows researchers to drive across the lake and capture depths at specific GPS locations on the fly.

“We’ll be able to map the whole lake,” Tom Taylor said. Once the information is recovered, the group will submit it to a vendor who will produce a new map of the lake with accurate depth data.

Jack Taylor, who has a doctorate in limnology, the study of inland lakes, rivers and groundwater, calls the siltation problem at Weiss pretty serious.

“It’s not an unknown thing; it’s been known to be serious since the early 90s,” Jack Taylor said. The problem is that most of the data is visual and not well documented on paper.

“It’s always been a shallow reservoir,” Jack Taylor said.

He estimates that a sand bar in the lake in front of his home in Centre is about twice the area as it was just four years ago.

Tom Taylor said he hopes the group can do the depth studies over several years to get a much better idea of the impact and help the Corps of Engineers and Alabama Power make corrective plans.

Source: Rome News

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