By Greg Baker – August 2021
Lake Anna Civic Association hosted our 2021 annual meeting on July 31, 2021 at Dominion Energy’s North Anna Nuclear Information Center. We had approximately 80 members attend in person and another 30 plus attend virtually via Zoom. For those of you that missed the event, you may watch a recording of the meeting on the LACA YouTube channel by clicking here.
The meeting kicked off with the announcement of the winners of the most recent board elections. John Crowe won an uncontested race for Regional Director in the Partlow District and David Silverman won a tight race for Regional Director in the Belmont District.
Our guest speaker, Dr. David Schmale made a terrific presentation regarding Harmful Algae Blooms. Dr. Schmale is the head of the Schmale Laboratory at Virginia Tech and world-renowned expert on Harmful Algae Blooms. I would highly encourage you to watch this portion of the recorded meeting above. His presentation begins at approximately the 8:00 minute mark.
Guest Speaker-Dr. Schmale
Some of the highlights of Dr. Schmale’s presentation:
- Highlights of Dr. Schmale’s recent research trip to New Zealand.
- Explanation of Harmful Algae Blooms/Algae Toxins and their impacts.
- New Tools/Robots used to study HABs.
- Research on lakes in Ohio on Lake Erie and Grand Lake St. Marys
- How LACA contacted and asked Dr. Schmale to devote resources to the HAB problem that we are experiencing on Lake Anna.
- Photos and Videos of HAB testing on Lake Anna.
- Citizen Testing supplies announcement.
- Toxins impacts to various parts of the body.
- Comparisons of Lake Anna Toxins to Lake Erie or Grand Lake St. Mary. “Not all lakes are created equal”
- Lake Anna has high Phosphorus and low Nitrogen.
- Q&A
Dr. Schmale’s presentation was fascinating and worth taking the time to watch. The biggest take away was that Lake Anna while in the recent past has been under no-swim advisories, our lake has very low measurable toxins. The biggest risk is that if we do not address these issues, that the lake could turn into something much worse like the lakes in Ohio that Dr. Schmale has studied.
After the guest speaker, the members approved the 2020 annual meeting minutes prepared by Sue Biondi and our Treasurer, Al Bennett presented our Financial Report. Our Vice-president, Joe Bailey presented to the membership changes that the board has made to the LACA By-laws.
Regional Director Rick Nehrboss highlighted the findings from our most recent biennial survey. Rick will be writing a more thorough article on the survey findings for a future newsletter, but in advance of that article, you may see his PowerPoint presentation here.
Each of our committee chairs made a report on the activities of their committees over the past fiscal year. I encourage you to watch this section of the annual meeting starting at the 1 hour and 32-minute mark of the recording to hear about all of the activities of our dedicated volunteers. It is a remarkable number of accomplishments over the past year.
Irene Luck, our chair of our Membership and Marketing committee updated the membership on our Drive to 1000 membership campaign. She then presented the Jack Bertron Award to Elk Creek Farm. The owners of the Elk Creek farm have put in over 6 miles of fencing to keep their cattle out of the Lake Anna watershed and are a fine example of how farmers can make a significant impact to the water quality of not only Lake Anna but the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed. You can read about their efforts in a recent Central Virginian article here.
The annual meeting ended with a member forum where our members were able to ask questions of our board and guest speaker. I would encourage you to mark your calendars for next year’s annual meeting. It is tentatively scheduled for July 30, 2022.
Greg Baker greg.baker@lakeannavirginia.org
