Collecting water quality data on a lake over many years is important to understand how our lake is doing. Many years of data collection is needed to establish a trend line based on all the variables that impact water quality.  No single year worth of data is enough to establish a trend line. Therefore, decisions on how to manage a lake should be based on long term data. There has been some long term water quality data collected in the lake, although it hasn’t been consistently collected year to year. In addition, very little data has been collected on the tributaries that flow into Hess Lake. According to a 1982 Study done by Edmands Engineering, 57% of the water and 54% of the phosphorus come into Hess Lake from Wheeler Drain (see this study under the Engineering tab). Additional engineering studies done in the 1990’s agree with this assessment. I know reviewing water quality data can be very boring. However, data is used to make decisions on how to improve the water quality of a lake.

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