On Tuesday March 21, the Leon County Commission will receive a Lake Munson status report and approving an extension of the Lake Munson drawdown through the Spring of 2024.
According to the status report, Lake Munson is a state-managed water body with chronic water quality and ecological problems. Problems include, fish kills, algal blooms, exotic vegetation, snails, high nutrient levels, low game fish productivity, sediment contamination and depressed oxygen levels.
The agenda item notes these issues have been ongoing for decades, and the City of Tallahassee, the Leon County Government and Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency have poured hundreds of millions of dollars to projects in the Lake Munson Basin and prioritizing upstream improvements which reduce the transport of sediment. See list of project below.
Lake Munson receives surface water flow from a 32,000-acre basin (the majority of it being located in the city of Tallahassee) and has historically been subjected to drainage with high nutrient loads and wastewater discharge discharges to the tributary system. The effects of this have resulted in embedding of legacy nutrients in the lake-bottom soil.
The pursuit to improve Lake Munson’s water quality problems and reduce the nutrient loading have been in progress since the 90s. The Lake Munson Action Plan was established in 1994 and has been utilized as a basis to guide watershed and stormwater improvements, regular testing and monitoring of water and regulatory actions to limit pollutions and protect natural resources.
In October 2022, the Board approved the Lake Munson Action Plan. The Action Plan will result in more frequent water quality testing and a survey of the lake which will help determine future in-lake mitigations strategies, a vegetation management program for treating invasive plants, and implementing periodic drawdowns.
The Action Plan recommends a treatment for algal blooms, ongoing engagement to evaluate the lake’s response to the drawdown, six-month updates to the Board and quarterly engagement with the Leon County Science Advisory Committee to go over enhanced monitoring.
The drawdown, monitoring and lake management operations began after the adoption of the Action Plan. However, due to unexpected high levels of rainfall throughout the winter, staff recommends the drawdown be delayed until the Spring of 2024. Throughout the next two years staff will continue to provide updates to the Board every six months.
Leon County Commission to to Receive Lake Munson Update added by Tristyn Leigh on
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Mr Blue
Nice try, but I guess you missed the recent sewage spill that’s on locals and so are all the others. Your attempt to forgive local leadership for their horrendous stewardship of the environment is hilarious.
It’s a STATE-Managed waterbody. We only have the GOP DeSantis-Scott-Crist-Bush to thank for their stewardship.
The millions over the years spent on Lake Munson have resulted in substantial “campaign contributions” being sent to our elected officials.
Its unexplainable why many contractors choose to send political contributions after being selected for major contract. That and that alone pretty much gurantee Lake Munson will continue to need major work for many lifetimes to come.
Building a giant ditch to run whats feeding into lake Munson over to the Tram Road spray fields would solve the problem forever but then that would also murder the never ending Lake Munson political contributions from gratefull contractors effectively killing the Lake Munson political contribution cash cow.
A true political/ecological conundrum with no end in sight.
The chronic water quality and ecological problems. Problems include, fish kills, algal blooms, exotic vegetation, snails, high nutrient levels, low game fish productivity, sediment contamination and depressed oxygen levels are mostly caused by Raw Sewage pouring into it for Decades thanks to the City & County Sewage Departments not maintaining their Equipment.
The City of Tallahassee, the Leon County Government and Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency have poured hundreds of millions of dollars to projects in the Lake Munson Basin and no one knows what they are doing. Most of that money has been wasted, How you all have been handling Lake Jackson over the past few Decades have proven that. If you all knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have spent 100’s of MILLIONS of Dollars.
The County could just fill this lake site that is now about a toxic cesspool and build low income housing on top of it…
In the late 90s, Munson was a hidden gem. Other than the more die-hard local bass fishermen, nobody knew about the lake or cared about it. Consequently, if you wanted a “Kodak Moment” then Munson was the place to go. It was almost routine to catch bass at least 8 pounds and by carefully putting them back and not getting your picture in the Democrat’s sports section, this phenomenal little secret remained secret.
But time and urban development has changed all that. I don’t care what’s restored, the lake will never be what it once was.
It is important to note that the lake access had to be shut down because it was a danger to the public at large. Someone dropped the ball and responsibility of monitoring and maintaining Lake Toilet Bowl.
To give such a glowing synopsis of the local leadership regarding their stewardship towards this lake is misleading.