Keep it Blue: Glen Lake Association’s boat tours inspire water stewardship

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Each Friday in July the Glen Lake Association’s 23-foot Bennington pontoon boat called the Discovery Boat offers a couple two-hour tours that depart from Glen Craft Marina on Big Glen Lake and visit Fisher Lake, which connects the Glen Lakes with the Crystal River. The intent is to offer waterfront landowners and environmental stewards a narrated, hands-on educational tour of the health of these lakes.

Glen Lake Association (GLA) watershed biologist Rob Karner narrates the tour, together with assistant scientist Joe Blondia, who sits behind the wheel. Both boast decades of experience as high school science teachers at The Leelanau School (Blondia is the senior faculty member; Karner retired a decade ago). As such, they are adept at using impassioned voices and narrative storytelling to break down complex scientific analysis. One doesn’t need a PhD in biology to understand the data showing the Glen Lakes are healthy, and we all must do our part to ensure they remain so.

The GLA’s discovery boat program was originally designed 12 years ago for the sailing program at the Glen Lake Yacht Club so young mariners out on the water would understand more than the direction of the wind and points of sail. Karner and Laura Wiesen modeled the discovery boat program after the Inland Seas Education Association, which offers tours and education about West Grand Traverse Bay as well as inland lakes, rivers and streams.

“We decided we’d get these kids on the boat,” said Karner. “We would spend time talking about the unique features of Glen Lake and what goes into protecting it. … Then we opened it up to the public.”

Karner estimated they have hosted hundreds of people on the discovery boat over the past 12 years. He and Blondia have also taken Leelanau School students on week-long sailing excursions in the British Virgin Islands.

“It’s really rewarding anytime you’re on a boat with people for any extended period of time. You instantly become friends,” he said.

The passengers on the discovery boat on a sun-kissed day in mid-June include Karner, Blondia, the Glen Lake Association’s new executive director Kate Gille, watershed research and outreach intern Suha Augenstein, boat wash senior manager Brian Stitt, office manager Sallyanne Morris, and a reporter. Each person shares what they like most about the Glen Lakes. Answers include the mesmerizing color of the water, its connection to the Crystal River, how the lakes open in a panorama as one descends County Road 677-Benzonia Trail from the south, the people who live around the lakes and protect them, and how this watershed changes from one season to the next.

During our tour, Karner offers a host of reasons why the Glen Lakes are pristine and healthy.

• Sandy soils around the watershed provide excellent drainage and reduce or eliminate runoff.
• The water residency time is eight years. By flushing out all the water, it allows new water to come in and flush out contaminates.
• The circular shape of Big Glen allows for a minimum amount of shoreline development vs. a convoluted shoreline with bays and peninsulas.
• Glen Lake has only one inlet. Multiple inlets tend to transport potential pollution.
• Glen Lake has a boat wash station at the public lake access ramp preventing invasive species.
• Glen Lake has only three townships vs. many more which allows for better coordination of ordinances.
• The ratio of land to water within the watershed is small thereby less land area drains into the lake that might carry potential pollutants.
• Glen Lake’s watershed is mostly forested allowing for good percolation of rain and preventing runoff.
• Glen Lake’s largest riparian is the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore which allows for total protection of the greenbelts on those shores.
• Glen Lake has little or no agriculture in the watershed that reduces any runoff of farm chemicals.
• Glen Lake has a watershed biologist who monitors all the water quality parameters.
• Glen Lake has a very active and award-winning lake association that is fully committed to water quality projects and protection.
•  Most riparians (people who live on the shoreline) have healthy greenbelts that help filter the water and reduce nutrient loading.
• Big Glen Lake is a phosphorous limited lake that helps contain algae and aquatic plant growth.
• Glen Lake has multiple partners in water quality protection including the Leelanau Conservancy, the National Park, Leelanau Clean Water, and Michigan Lake and Stream Associations.
• The region’s population is low for most of the year and in turn, puts less stress on the septic systems that can pollute the lake.
• Glen Lake has a marl bottom, and this acts as a buffer against acid rain and snow.

These unique advantages help the Glen Lake watershed withstand pressures that would degrade its environmental health. The GLA hopes that its educational focus will help it stand out as a beacon of hope for other watersheds in the Great Lakes region.

GLA yard signs around the Glen Lakes boast the slogan “Keep it Blue,” part of the organization’s month-long, community-wide campaign to raise awareness about water quality. The organization’s tagline is to “help preserve the clean, clean water of the Glen Lake/Crystal River watershed for generations to come.”

Indeed, the Glen Lake Association has emerged as a trendsetter among lake associations statewide. At the Michigan Lakes and Streams Conference in Muskegon in late April, Karner’s presentation, “Leveraging Digital Optical Data to Improve Water Quality,” showcased how the GLA is using cutting-edge technology to collect data and care for the watershed. The presentation highlighted how the association uses aerial and underwater drones for shoreline surveys, biological mapping, and capture stunning images of special and unique events.

“Anecdotally, I can say that his presentation had one of the highest attendances that I saw personally, and the audience was extremely engaged,” said GLA executive director Gille.

Once we arrive in Fisher Lake, Blondia drops a plankton tow net for 10 minutes and later transfers his catch into a plastic bottle so we can observe plankton and microscopic organisms that form the base of the lake’s food chain.

“He’s looking at who’s coming to the party,” Blondia narrates the process. “Are there the usual guests? Are there uninvited guests? Was there somebody here this week that wasn’t here last month? … We’ve been keeping track of this since 2014.”

He explains that the diatoms at the bottom have skeletons made of silica glass that don’t decompose.

“They’re around forever,” said Blondia. “So we can go back through the 10,000-year history of this lake by digging a core down into the bottom of the lake and looking at who was here thousands of years ago. … The deeper you go, the further back in time you see.”

They’ve also found unnatural things in the lake made by humans, including microplastics that don’t decompose, and mercury that arrives through rainfall or snow melt and embeds itself in smaller fish that are consumed by lake trout.

“It can get to the point where the lake trout is full of mercury and you wouldn’t want to eat it more than once a week, and certainly not if you were pregnant,” said Karner.

An advantage of the Glen Lakes region’s seasonal population and as few as 20 percent of residents living at their homes throughout the year is less stress on septic systems, which can leak into the water and over time cause eutrophication, the process of a lake aging.

“The faster the eutrophication, meaning the more stuff you put in the water that’s not natural, the faster the lake will age, and the less it will be blue, and will turn more and more to green,” said Karner. “Guess what? Once it turns green, full of algae and pea soup, like Lake Erie, you often can’t get it back to blue. It’s a one-way street.”

The GLA recently conducted a study of enteric bacteria (from humans) by taking water samples from the wells of 45 residents and samples from Glen Lake. The association also flew an infrared drone overhead at night to capture images of heat sources caused by bacteria.

“If it was a nice red square, everything was contained,” said Blondia. “If it was a red square with a couple of red branches going off towards the lake, it was a problem.”

A key part of the study was educating residents about the impact septic systems can have on aquatic environments.

“There were people who didn’t think septics were polluting the lake,” said Karner. “We’d hear, ‘I go out fishing. The water looks good. I don’t see any difference’.”

That study and others changed the conversation. The GLA and other organizations advocated for stronger oversight of septic systems. In 2022 the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners passed a county-wide point-of-sale septic inspection ordinance. Leelanau remains an outlier, as Michigan is the only state in the nation lacking a statewide septic code.

Our story adapted from an Interlochen Public Radio piece by Dan Wanschura, narrates the Glen Lake Association’s groundbreaking study on swimmer’s itch and sea change in understanding how we as humans can mitigate its effects. Hint: we can’t eradicate swimmer’s itch by removing ducks. Instead, study the winds, and swim later in the day to lesson the risk of exposure.

The GLA has a few spots remaining for its Friday tours on the Discovery Boat through July. Tours depart promptly at 10 am and 12:45 pm. The per person cost is $15 for GLA members and $25 for non-members. Purchase tickets at: GlenLakeAssociation.org/discovery-boat-tours/.