The DEQ’s Remediation and Redevelopment Division will be flying a drone along the entire shoreline of Lake Margrethe, beginning Tuesday Sept 18 through Friday Sept 21. The exact times will be weather dependent (rain, wind, lake conditions, etc.). The drone has a visual camera as well as a thermal imaging camera. The purpose is to look for groundwater seeps and springs where the groundwater enters the lake. This way we can concentrate sampling water coming into the lake. Generally flying between 50-100 feet above the lake (and that can vary based upon conditions.) This drone is a new piece of equipment and we are not certain how “deep” we will be able to “see” so that is another thing we will be looking at. A press release is supposed to be coming out and I will send that to you once I receive it. I didn’t want to wait for that press release to let you know.
Attaching a video taken by the drone as a test run we did on the north shore of Higgins Lake a few weeks back. The shore and trees are at the top of the video. The lake is the middle and bottom, and the blue you see is a spring fed creek that dumps into Higgins Lake. The blue is the cold water entering and you can see it mixing with the lake water.
Another update, we did complete the installation of 5 monitoring wells along the S.E. area of the lake and these wells were developed last week and will be sampled in the next week or two. Estimating 5-6 weeks before we get those results back.
Thanks to LMPOA for all your help with this project.
Much appreciation,
Randall L. Rothe
District Supervisor, Remediation and Redevelopment Division
Department of Environmental Quality
2100 West M-32, Gaylord, MI 49735
989-705-3416 (Direct Line) 989-217-0083 (Cell)
989-731-4920 (Office) 989-731-6181 (Fax)
[email protected]