By Mark DeBord and Rick Hoyle – May 2024

This article focuses on the responses LACA received to the survey questions from the Environmental Preservation (EP) committee.  These questions sought to determine member support for current and potential EP initiatives and solicit member concerns about environmental challenges to Lake Anna.

Regarding support for EP initiatives, over half of our respondents indicated they were at least somewhat interested in providing time or financial support for specifically identified EP committee efforts as follows:

Potential Environmental Preservation Activity	Highest Interest	Any Interest
Planting Native Flora on and near shore	37%	58%
Area road cleanups	27%	56%
Shoreline cleanups	35%	60%
Floating Treatment Islands	27%	56%
Stormwater Runoff Control	34%	59%
Seeking private and government funding for preservation efforts	48%	60%
Seeking government intervention/regulation/enforcement to control environmental impacts	44%	58%

EP committee leads are evaluating the efficacy of the Floating Treatment Islands.  In many cases, the anchor ties for these islands break and the islands are washed ashore and/or the plants on the islands die.  This requires significant effort and funding to redeploy and/or repopulate the islands every spring.  The leads are conducting a cost benefit analysis to determine if time and effort is better spent on Floating Treatment Islands or planting native flora on and near shorelines. 

LACA has been fortunate in attracting grants from industry such as DuPont for environmental preservation efforts, especially for planting native flora.  These grants still require the committee leads to coordinate assistance in planting as they did in the Spring of 2023 with the assistance of volunteers and Louisa County High School students.

Floating Treatment Islands have been a major LACA initiative since the last LACA survey in 2019.  Many respondents (42%) expressed interest in supporting this Environmental Preservation initiative through financial (51%) or labor (21%) contributions or having a one deployed in the lake in front of their property (14%).  As stated earlier, the leadership of the Environmental Preservation Committee plans to reach out to these respondents once the cost/benefit analysis is complete to either take these members up on their offer, or request they redirect their generosity to shoreline native flora efforts.

The Environmental Preservation section of the survey also queried members regarding their concerns with plant, animal, or aquatic invasive species.  Thirty-five percent of respondents to this question indicated concern.  Individual comments submitted were especially interesting with 48 citing HAB/Algae/Cyanobacteria, 39 citing snakeheads, 37 concerned with Hydrilla, 12 identifying plants, grass, weeds, or reeds, 7 citing cows, and 4 concerned with beavers.  Although some of these are not invasive, they can certainly cause problems.  One bright point is that some members have found snakehead fish to be very tasty!

The EP committee leads have created an Action Plan with due dates in reaction to the responses received for the questions cited above.  These actions await the approval of the LACA Board even though several of these actions have already been implemented. Further actions may be recommended by the Board and approved actions will be monitored for progress at our monthly meetings. You can expect to see responses soon if not already because of all the survey responses.  Again, membership feedback is extremely valuable and we are determined to implement your suggestions! Thanks again to those who completed our survey!

rick.hoyle@lakeannavirginia.org

lara.weatherholtz@lakeannavirginia.org

mark.debord@lakeannavirginia.org