Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Welcome to Lake Doctor: A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast, your go-to source for understanding and preserving the health of our local lakes. Join hosts Dr. Nate Bosch, an expert in limnology, and Suzie Light, a lifelong resident and passionate advocate for our aquatic environments, as they dive deep into the challenges facing Kosciusko County's lakes.
Dr. Nate Bosch grew up in Michigan and received his doctorate in 2007 from the University of Michigan in limnology. With 18 peer-reviewed publications spanning research from the Great Lakes to smaller inland lakes and streams, Nate has been awarded the prestigious Chandler Misner Award twice by the International Association of Great Lakes Research. At Grace College, Nate is a professor in the environmental science program, dean of the School of Science and Engineering, and leads the Lilly Center team, serving the local community with dedication and expertise.
Each episode tackles these critical issues head-on, featuring insightful interviews with our partners, engaging Q&A sessions, and fun segments for the science enthusiasts among us. You'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the impactful research and education efforts spearheaded by the Lilly Center and discover how we can all contribute to safeguarding our precious freshwater ecosystems.
Tune in bi-monthly starting June 2024, and join the conversation by leaving comments or emailing us at lakes@grace.eduwith your questions and ideas. Supported by the K21 Health Foundation, Rick and April Sasso, and DreamOn Studios, this podcast aims to inspire and inform the next generation of water-literate citizens and environmental stewards. Learn more about our work and how to support us at lakes.grace.edu.
Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Water Safety and Protection: Insights from a Conservation Officer
Experience the world of conservation law enforcement through the eyes of Lieutenant Ashley Jackson, District 1 Commander with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Discover the path that led Ashley to a career that combines a love for nature with a family legacy in law enforcement. As fully sworn officers, conservation officers like Ashley play a crucial role in supporting a variety of DNR divisions. From his training at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy to his current role, Ashley shares valuable advice for anyone considering a career in conservation law enforcement, alongside insights into the diverse contributions of Lilly Center graduates in fields like fisheries and wildlife management.
Uncover the transformative power of education and outreach in fostering safe and responsible lake usage. Through initiatives such as Operation Dry Water and educational conservation camps like Camp Mollenhour, young and seasoned outdoor enthusiasts alike are encouraged to embrace responsible practices. These programs aim to engage the community and nurture a generation that respects and values natural resources. By tackling issues like safe boating practices and alcohol consumption on the water, these efforts enhance public compliance with safety regulations, ensuring that everyone can enjoy the lakes safely.
Explore the ecological impact of boats and the measures needed to protect lake environments. Responsible fishing and boating practices begin with simple actions like obtaining fishing licenses and boat registrations, which fund crucial lake improvement programs. Learn how conservation officers work tirelessly to ensure waterway safety, including conducting water rescues and using advanced equipment to patrol extensive lake areas. Additionally, delve into the fascinating findings of a research project on sediment resuspension caused by various watercraft, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a minimum water depth to protect aquatic ecosystems from nutrient pollution and harmful algae blooms.
Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.
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Thanks for listening to the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm your host, susie Light. I get to share some stories and talk about our beautiful lakes with my friend, dr Nate Bosch. Nate, you received your degree in limnology from the University of Michigan.
Speaker 2:Aquatic systems On this podcast we're going to dive into some lake science. We're going to meet folks who are passionate about our lakes, just like Susie and I are, and we're going to have some fun together as well.
Speaker 1:Visit lakesgraceedu, where you can learn more about the topics in this episode and support the Lilly Center's work.
Speaker 2:In today's episode we have Lieutenant Ashley Jackson. He's the District 1 Commander with the Conservation Officers. This is a part of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and we're going to talk about law enforcement on our lakes.
Speaker 1:We are so excited for today's episode of the Lake Doctor podcast Joining us today. Lieutenant Ashley Jackson, you are a conservation officer with the Department of Natural Resources. Tell us a bit about you and I'm going to refer to you as Ashley. We've known each other for quite some time, since you served on the board of the CO, camp CO Mullenauer. But tell us a bit about you.
Speaker 3:Yes, thanks for having me. I am a conservation officer, like you said, in the state of Indiana. I become a conservation officer originally in 2006. I graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in 2007, with my primary field assignment being right here in Kosciuszko County, so this is where I started my career.
Speaker 1:Are we originally home in Kosciuszko County, or did you grow up somewhere else?
Speaker 3:Yep, I grew up just outside of South Bend, actually in St Joe County, so this is a transplant for me. So I moved here in 2007 and You're still a Northern Indiana boy Yep, still from, still from the general area.
Speaker 1:Yep, cool. You know, I didn't realize that conservation officers were graduates of the Indiana Law Academy.
Speaker 3:Yep Yep were graduates of the Indiana Law.
Speaker 1:Academy, yep, so you are actually a law enforcement person. Are all conservation officers that?
Speaker 3:Yes, all conservation officers are full sworn police officers in the state of Indiana. They've all graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and they're all entrusted by the state of Indiana to enforce all the state laws as they pertain to Indiana.
Speaker 1:So not all Department of Natural Resources personnel, though, are conservation officers. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:That is correct.
Speaker 1:Besides law enforcement, what's the range of work that happens within the DNR?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the DNR as a whole. The DNR is the Department of Natural Resources. They're made up of many agency or many divisions, what we call them. I think there's 13 or 14 of them in total, and the law enforcement division is just one of these divisions. Some of the other divisions are. They include communications, engineering, entomology, fish and wildlife, forestry, heritage, historical preservation and archaeology, nature preserves, oil and gas reclamation, state parks, through law enforcement, you're helping assure safe recreation.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yeah, the Division of Law Enforcement's responsibility is to enforce the rules and regulations that all these other divisions are entrusted with primarily. So that's kind of our role as a law enforcement division within the DNR is to support all the other divisions within the DNR.
Speaker 1:So, besides going to the Indiana Law Academy, what kind of educational? And the reason I'm asking this is because there may be grandparents listening who say, oh, you know, that might be a career for my grandchild. What kind of education is needed?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You're required to have a high school degree or equivalent, and I graduated from, I got a bachelor's degree from, indiana University and then from there I went on to our recruit school process, which we have our own training program. Once you're hired on, you go through what we call recruit school and it's a mixture of physical fitness testing as well as mental testing, as well as education on this job, specifically some essentials training and then from there, those that are hired on go to the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy for 15 weeks down at Plainfield and Once you graduate that, then we have an extensive FTO program once you're in the field To continue to learn all the many avenues that that the conservation officers are responsible to enforce. So the whole training process, from start to end, is about a year.
Speaker 2:So, given all of those different areas that the DNR works and here in the state of Indiana, why law enforcement? Why is that of particular interest to you?
Speaker 3:For me. I grew up in a family that was in law enforcement. My grandfather was actually my great grandfather was actually graduated as an Indiana State Police officer in the first State Police Academy back in 1935. So it's just kind of always been in the family and so this is just an avenue. I didn't want to necessarily go down that path, but I wanted to do something in law enforcement. This was more of a non-traditional law enforcement path that kind of suited my interests a little more.
Speaker 1:Cool. So growing up were you like an outdoors guy. You like to camp and fish.
Speaker 3:I do yep Cool.
Speaker 1:You know, speaking of family Nate, I believe that you at the Lilly Center have had some graduates that might be involved with DNR.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've had a number of graduates go on to work in the DNR to fisheries, which would be a different division. That would be that fish and wildlife division that you mentioned. Right, we've had students go into also fisheries, with working with district biologists and working in those areas, and so, yeah, the DNR becomes a good direction for a number of our students to go into.
Speaker 1:Have any of them gone into being a conservation officer?
Speaker 2:We've got a number of them right now that are interested in that, that are either recent grads or are coming up towards graduation, and so we'll be excited to see if they sounds like a pretty high bar to make the cut, but hopefully we'll get some of them into the conservation officers.
Speaker 1:What is this conservation officer's jurisdiction when it comes to the lakes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of our mottos is our patrol begins where the blacktop ends, and what this means is we patrol a lot of areas that other law enforcement agencies don't have the ability to or they don't have the resources to patrol. So we're often seen on Indiana's waterways which includes the lakes and or out the woods, checking hunters or snowmobile patrols and stuff like that. So we are Indiana's law enforcement agency that is given the resources to patrol the waterways.
Speaker 1:So hunters? What about people who are fishing?
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, yep. Our job is to be on the water and check fishing people that are fishing, people that are recreating on the lake, people that are hunting on the lake any activity really. That's on a public freshwater lake. We're going to be the law enforcement agency that regulates the activities that occur on that body of water.
Speaker 1:So have your field students who are out patrolling the lakes not patrolling, but researching on lakes encountered conservation officers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have, and sometimes when we're out collecting, we have a special scientific purposes license with the DNR collecting, we have a special scientific purposes license with the DNR. And so we've had students even out collecting fish for some of our aquariums that we put in different schools and they've encountered conservation officers. Hey, what are you guys doing? You're not really following the typical rules here and they have to pull out their purposes license. There was one instance where students didn't have their purposes license with them and I got a very scared call from one of our students hey, we're here with a conservation officer, but the officer was nice enough to come back to campus with the students and we were able to give them the license and it ended up being no big deal, but those students were pretty freaked out Well.
Speaker 1:I hope you took them on a good tour of the Lilly Center while he was there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes and yeah. I think that's a good distinction. Our students when they're out sampling on our local lakes as well. People see them out there taking samples. Research will sometimes wonder hey, are you guys working for the DNR? No, we're the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams out of Grace College. We're doing research which is different than the role of a conservation officer out on the lakes or even a fisheries biologist from the DNR out on the lakes.
Speaker 1:So Nate shared a good example of how his students have interacted with a conservation officer. How about from a conservation officer's perspective? Have you had any memorable occurrences on a lake?
Speaker 3:Not necessarily with them but, yeah, with these partnerships none of this would be possible. And it takes everybody, from all those divisions, including Fish and Wildlife, that regulates those permits for the research to happen, and the fishing, the fisher, biologists and the law enforcement division to enforce the laws and the rules that pertain to fishing and, in the environment, that that make these resources sustainable for these future generations so, ashley, when you're thinking about being a conservation officer I know my interactions with conservation officers as I've gotten my students to do ride-alongs with conservation officers and I've seen them at lake associations and stuff like that One of the things that they've told me that they're often doing is education.
Speaker 2:So maybe you could take us through an example in a few different lake type contexts where you guys are doing education and maybe what's the most common thing that you're explaining. And maybe let's look at a recreational boater, an angler and a waterfall hunter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, absolutely. Education is a very important aspect of our job and something that we strive to get out there to the public. It's like the lowest level of enforcement action we can take and that's just educating the public on how to do it safely and correctly. Our ultimate goal is to get everybody in compliance, so that's what we try to do. We try to be very involved and engaged in the community that our officers serve in.
Speaker 3:So we attend as many Lake Association meetings as we can conservation club meetings, sportsman's groups, gun clubs, homeowners association meetings, any of those kind of meetings. If we're invited to them we try to attend or have an officer there to answer any questions that they may have, especially as it pertains to lakes and stuff like that. So as far as us going out and checking, like some specific things on education, when we check somebody that's waterfowl hunting on the lakes, you know a common violation is and a safety concern of ours is having a boat that's overloaded and just educating them on the capacity of that boat in order to find a capacity plate to find out how much weight can actually be on that boat. That way they can safely be out there and engage in the activity that they're out there to do.
Speaker 2:So that would be an example of one, so it might not be an issue of number of people on the boat and waterfowl hunting, but there's so much equipment and stuff that the weight is pretty high it could be that, and it could be with people, because a lot of waterfowl hunting is done with groups of people as well, so it could be a combination of both.
Speaker 3:So that would be an example there. As far as checking a fisherman, we often check people fishing and ask to see their life jackets. We're just up there doing a compliance check, make sure that they have their licenses and they don't have their life jackets readily available, maybe not even on the boat at all, but if they do have them, sometimes they're. They're tucked away in a compartment that's locked and inside that locked compartment they're inside of a bag to keep them dry and they're zipped up in that bag and then once you finally get them out, they still have the tags on them, so they're not necessarily readily available. So just educating the public on where those life jackets need to be on the boat while they're out on the water. So that would be an example of one for an angler and as far as the everyday recreational boaters on the water.
Speaker 3:We see that's an increasing thing right now.
Speaker 3:So, more and more people are going to the lakes. Our lakes are getting that much busier, that much crowded, more crowded and probably our main safety concern there is alcohol consumption on the lake. They seem to go hand in hand. This weekend we participated in a national campaign called Operation Dry Water and even with the extensive output of information on boating while intoxicated, you know we still made a half a dozen boating while intoxicated arrests just in Kosciuszko County alone this weekend. So just getting out there and trying to educate the public that they really don't go hand in hand and make sure that they're operating safely and under the legal limit of alcohol.
Speaker 1:So I know education is important to you. I know education is important to you. Tell us about Camp Molenauer and the conservation officers' engagement with young campers and what they're doing to help educate kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our conservation camps. We have two of them in the state. They're probably our most valuable thing that we can do. Our most valuable thing that we can do, you know, that's grabbing a potential resource user. That's going to be the next, the future generation of resource users, and we can instill values in them at a young age on how they should be looking at these resources and how they should be appropriately utilizing them and safely recreating on them. So our first camp is held in june and it's carl kelly camp. It's down by west lafayette. Yeah, our second camp is, uh, seal mullin, our conservation camp, and it's held right here in kaziasco county. So, and it kicks off in july, it's the second and third week of july. There's a week of boys camp and there's a week of girls camp and the camp fills up and they these, they get hunter education, they get boating education, trapper education, they're introduced to a lot of natural resource programs. They get plenty of time on the lake to enjoy themselves as well.
Speaker 2:And that's.
Speaker 3:McClure's Lake right? Yep, it's down on McClure Lake, just outside of Silver Lake.
Speaker 1:And I think what's exciting about it is the number of people adults that you have helping with these children, and there are what about 70 slots for kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we take 84 kids to each camp and you're right, the community involvement in this camp has just been so great over the years. This camp's over 80-plus years old and if you wear a Camp Molina shirt in public and you go to Walmart, you know that's the first thing somebody walks up and points out is I've been to that camp when I was a kid and the impact that that camp has had on this community is just tremendous and the community support for the camp. It just continues to be there and it's just a very neat partnership that that camp has with this community.
Speaker 1:Long ago my brothers got to go.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but my sisters didn't get to go.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited that now Camp Molinar is available to both boys and girls. So, thank you for your good work that you're doing there. It really is making a difference in kids' lives and that's going to help our lakes in the long run.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the honor is ours to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:So besides gun safety, you bring in like jet skis and other kinds of watercraft that kids get to use.
Speaker 3:We do. Yeah, we bring in. We'll bring in jet skis so they can look at a personal watercraft, but just different styles of patrol boats, john boats, some airboats, things that they may not typically see on a day-to-day basis but that they may encounter.
Speaker 1:When you are working with your students and helping them understand our natural resources and the ability for the different jobs that are available. How do you prepare your students much like? How do you prepare those children at camp to be advocates for our lakes, for jobs in lake-related activities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we work in education on a number of different levels at the Lilly Center. One is the preschool through 12th grade level, and we do lots of different educational programs there. This most recent school year, over 12,000 student connections across that span of preschool through 12th grade. And the word that we use, or the phrase we use there, is water literacy, and so we want to raise up the next generation of what we would call water literate citizens, who are going to make good choices, hopefully not get in trouble in the future by not following the right rules, and they can then become advocates for these water systems.
Speaker 2:And then, if we look at that up, those older students these would be our college students that are at Grace College, and as we start thinking with them about careers after college, many of them are interested in a job like the Department of Natural Resources, and so then we can start to and this is part of my job that I really enjoy start to tease out some of those differences, even like what Ashley was talking about. Are you really interested in law enforcement and being out there and kind of helping educate and make sure people follow these rules that are meant to protect our natural resources, or are you more on the side of doing research and understanding better these aquatic systems? Maybe that's more in the fish and wildlife side of things. And so then those students, then we try to get them experiences and internships and maybe some research, and put their classes in such a way that get them ready for one of those couple directions working for a place like the DNR, and our students have been able to, as we talked about, been successful with those sort of approaches.
Speaker 1:And then, ashley, as you're preparing right now for camp, you're giving thought to how your adults are working with those students, campers, um helping them understand the water literacy through the boating rules, gun safety rules, fishing rules. And what can we learn about fishing rules? I'm thinking about people who are going out on the lake in a boat fishing, maybe with a cooler bear. How do we make sure?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of things with that scenario.
Speaker 3:How do we make sure? Yeah, there's a lot of things with that scenario. You know we want to make sure that the people understand what's the responsible thing to do even before going out to fish, and one of them would be purchasing a fishing license. And what is the importance of purchasing a fishing license? Where does that money go? You know that money goes directly back into the fisheries. So you know we want to educate them even on that standpoint. Where does your boat registration money go?
Speaker 3:If you're on a boat, you know, make sure your boat's registered, because that money all comes back to help the lakes as well. And then, once you're out on the water, we want to make sure that people are following the rules that pertain to the species that you may be fishing. You know you don't want to overbag and put a strain on, maybe, that resource say, bag limits and size, size limits for for reasons Uh. And then we want to make sure everybody that's out there on the lake are doing it safely. So if you are going to consume alcohol, we want people to consume it at a level that's that's appropriate, not one that's going to cause a state of intoxication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's back up with some of those things that Ashley was just talking about.
Speaker 2:So boater registration is one of the things that they can prepare for that fishing trip with, and you mentioned that that goes back into our local lakes, and so it's my understanding that those funds go into the Lake and River Enhancement Program, which is a DNR funding mechanism which helps improve a lot of our lakes.
Speaker 2:It might be dredging out certain parts, it might be diagnostic studies that help identify things that need to be worked on. It might be implementation projects that actually prevent erosion or help a lake get cleaner in a certain way. Also, you mentioned fishing licenses. That those funds, uh I think go into, uh, some of the fish and wildlife, uh, sort of research that's done, and so it's important, I think, for our listeners and viewers to remember that those fees are doing a really good thing than when they when they come back and then you also quick went through and for the, the fishers that are in our audience, they'll understand bag limits and slots and size and those sort of things, but maybe we should unpack that a little bit as well. So a bag limit would be sort of the total number of fish of a particular species that you can, that you can keep yeah, that's very nice fish species it does yeah and so, and that keeps from overfishing and sort of swaying the population in an unhealthy direction for a particular lake ecosystem.
Speaker 2:And so if you didn't have a bag limit for a particular type of fish, maybe you'd have some anglers that are really good at catching that type of fish.
Speaker 1:Or they especially like to eat the perch.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so then you could decimate that particular population and it reduces the diversity in the lake and the whole lake. Then ecosystem won't function as it could because of that sort of imbalance which could be created if people aren't following the rules.
Speaker 1:So I understand bag limits now and I understand size limits, but there was another phrase that you used.
Speaker 2:Slot limits?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is a?
Speaker 3:slot limits. But there was another phrase that you use slot limits. Yeah, what is a slot? Slot limits would be on, like our rivers, where a fish can be a minimum size and you can keep it, and or a maximum size and you can keep it, but there would be a size limit in between there that you would not be able to keep it, and you can keep as many as you want, maybe under a certain size, or you can keep only so many over a certain size as well.
Speaker 2:So that'd be example of a slot limit and that might be if fisheries biologists notice that during within that slot there's not very many fish of that species in that slot and maybe that's prime spawning size or something like that, which which is the reproduction for the fish, and so so if we're noticing that again there's an imbalance kind of in the age structure or the size structure of that particular fish, by having that slot you protect that slot, those sizes, but you still allow people the freedom and the excitement to go fishing for that fish.
Speaker 1:But they just have to be outside of that slot Does DNR conservation officers, but officers especially participate in water rescues.
Speaker 3:We do, yeah, as one of the primary responsibilities of being on the waterways is for us to be able to answer those calls for service, whether it's a boat accident, a drowning, a boat accident, a drowning.
Speaker 3:As a state agency, being a larger agency, we have some resources that a lot of local police departments or fire departments may not have.
Speaker 3:We have a sonar program where we can actually image the bottom of the lake using sight scan sonar. We also have remote-operated vehicles that will do the same thing. It's basically an underwater submarine that officers can stand on shore and send that thing down and take video and pictures and image the bottom of the lake to see what they're looking at before we send divers down those pieces of equipment. They cost over $100,000 apiece, so that's not something that just any local agency can get. So anytime there's a water related emergency like that, they'll call on some of that equipment to be utilized. So and it takes a lot of training as well. So, being a larger agency, we have the manpower that we can designate towards some of these specialty programs where they can actually not only have the equipment but actually train on on that that equipment, so when the need arises they have the ability to get there, so another but our conservation officers deployed on all of our lakes?
Speaker 1:do we have conservation officer boats on all the lakes?
Speaker 3:We don't have boats on all the lakes. There's more lakes in Indiana than conservation officers, for sure.
Speaker 2:Over a hundred just in Kosciuszko County. There's over a hundred just in.
Speaker 3:Kosciuszko County. So yeah, certain lakes of certain sizes have patrol boats that are assigned to that body of water and they're on there all the time, and other lakes we trailer boats too.
Speaker 2:Now, how does it work? I know some lakes, larger lakes I'm thinking of Lake Wawasee in particular that has their own lake patrol. So how do they? And then I think some sheriff's departments also do some lake patrol. So how do you guys work together, conservation officers with sheriff, with maybe private lake?
Speaker 1:patrols. Would that be the lake association that would have the lake patrol, or somebody else? Yeah?
Speaker 3:Every county is set up a little different when it comes to their Lake Patrols. So in Kosciuszko County, I think, some of it is done through, like the Lake Association, in conjunction with the Sheriff's Department and their special deputies on the lake, so they're just an extra set of eyes out there for us. They'll also assist with stranded motorists and stuff like that, boaters that are on the lake that just may need direction, may need help, but they have the ability to be on the lake when we can't also.
Speaker 1:So, ashley, you know that we're in Indiana and we like to take our freedom pretty seriously. How do we balance our freedoms to do things responsibly, our freedoms to do things responsibly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, with freedom comes responsibility, and conservation officers aren't there to take anybody's freedoms away, and we all have the rights to go and enjoy these lakes and to recreate upon them. And to be responsible about it would be to go about it in a way that you can ensure that future generations are going to be able to do the same thing. So it's it's our legacy as conservation officers, but also to all the recreation users out there, to be able to pass that on to our future generations.
Speaker 1:So a boating experience for me. I have the right to enjoy it, but I don't have the right to impede on your enjoyment of the lake. And that's taking that responsibility seriously, but then also looking at the stewardship.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 1:And we're thankful that conservation officers are paying attention to that kind of environmental stewardship as well as keeping us safe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these lakes are a great resource that we want everybody to be able to enjoy. They're not owned by one person. They're owned by the citizens of the state of Indiana, so everybody has the right to enjoy them. We want to make sure that everybody's rights are protected on those waterways and that everybody can enjoy those lakes safely, not just for themselves, but also they're engaged in an activity that's safely, that's not going to cause issues for others as well.
Speaker 1:So I've heard before a boater says yeah, the conservation officer illegally searched my boat because I was driving erratically. What can an officer do when it comes to searching?
Speaker 3:Yeah, as far as searching goes, an officer would have to have probable cause to actually search a boat, to look in closed compartments or anything like that. So what we're doing if we're coming up to a boat and there's either a reason that we stopped the boat or we were doing a compliance check because they are engaged in a fishing activity or something along the lines and we would have to have a reason to stop the boat. So, whatever that reason is, that would allow us up there to have a conversation with the operator with hopes of just getting them in compliance with whatever they are doing wrong. But yeah, if we're up there and we smell marijuana or something like that, that's that's going to change our approach and how we go about that boat interaction and what we're actually looking for and what we're actually investigating.
Speaker 1:Do you conduct breathalyzer tests?
Speaker 3:We do yep Anytime we suspect a boater was boating while intoxicated, we'll run them through standardized field sobriety tests for the operator and offer them a chemical test if we believe that they're, they're over the legal limit to operate a motorboat.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I don't have personal experience about this, but I've heard that if you are driving a vehicle and you get stopped, they might ask you to walk a straight line. Now you're not going to do that on a boat. What kind of field sobriety test is there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there there is standardized seated field sobriety test. Now that can all be done from a boat based. It's all essentially looking at somebody's eyes and some hand coordination stuff, and then that will give us the ability to determine whether or not we need to go on shore and perform more tests or offer a chemical test.
Speaker 1:Ashley, is there anything else that you want our listeners to know about conservation officers?
Speaker 3:No, just that. We want you to be out there and enjoying the lake and passing it on to future generations, and we enjoy seeing everybody out there. Most of the people that we interact with on a daily basis I'd say 95% of the people that we deal with the interactions are very well and those people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and they're doing it the right way, and we're just there to help encourage them to continue to do so and to be able to pass down these great memories and these great experiences to the future generations.
Speaker 1:Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today. Seriously, I am so glad that you were here.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We want to make sure that conservation officers like policemen. They are our friends. They're trying to keep us safe. We appreciate the work that you are doing.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for tuning in to this podcast. Stay tuned for more.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Dr Nate Bosch from the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. One of the questions that we get a lot about using our local lakes is boats and how do boats influence the ecology of our lakes. Some people will remember seeing a boat maybe going through a shallow area on their lake and seeing behind it all the sediment kind of the sediment plume that stirred up with that propeller moving through that shallow water and taking sediment which was on the bottom now up into the water column. And so to answer those questions we developed a research project, got together some funding and some partners. A local boat marina helped us out with all the equipment that we needed and we studied just that. We took five different types of watercraft the most common watercraft throughout northern Indiana here and would be common throughout the Midwestern United States and probably around the world. We looked at personal watercraft like a jet ski or sea-do. We looked at a pontoon boat, a standard pontoon boat where people like to putz around the lake in. We looked at an inboard, outboard sort of cruiser type boat that people might use for skiing. We looked at a strictly inboard boat, more of a typical ski boat, and then we looked at the increasing popularity of wake surfing boats. That was our fifth one, fully loaded with the ballast so that it sits low in the water and creates the biggest wake.
Speaker 2:We then took those five different types of boats and we ran them at different speeds. We ran them at idle speed to simulate someone just moving slowly from their pier or coming back again or maybe through a channel. We also ran them at near plane where they're sort of plowing water, and then we ran them up at on plane where they're actually skimming across the surface of the water. We ran those boats on three different bottom substrate types Muck, which would be a really black, easily suspended sediment on the bottom. Sand, which probably most people are familiar with, along a sandy shore, maybe of a lake or an ocean. And then marl, which maybe you're not as familiar with. This is a limestone sediment type that's produced by algae. As they're doing photosynthesis and changing the pH of the water, it actually precipitates little bits of limestone on the bottom, which is kind of a white and also easily suspended sediment on the bottom of our lakes. So we took five types, three different speeds, three different types of bottom substrate.
Speaker 2:We also looked at several depths of water. We looked at three feet of water depth. We looked at five feet of water depth, 10 feet of water depth and 15 feet of water depth, and when you start adding up all those combinations, we took lots and lots of samples and we had boats running lots and lots of different directions throughout. We did it on lake wawasee, which is our largest natural lake in indiana, so we had lots of places around the lake where we could run these different tests and not negatively influence one test from another. And what we found was that at 10 feet water depth that was the minimum water depth where we didn't see any resuspension of sediment on the bottom, no matter how fast the boat was going, no matter what type of sediment was on the bottom or what type of watercraft was going across the surface. We had drones, we had boats with samples, we had underwater photography. We did it up really big to be able to come with a recommendation of if you're going to make a wake from a watercraft, any of those five types, you want to stay in at least 10 feet of waters, and then we know for sure that you won't be stirring up the bottom and you won't be bringing that sediment back up into suspension. So you might wonder. Well, why does it even matter if we bring the mud that was on the bottom back up into the water column? The reason for that is, as that sediment comes back up into the water column, it's bringing with it a lot of nutrients, and we tested that as well in our research. We looked at what nutrient levels were brought up into the water when that bottom sediment got stirred up, and particularly we're interested in nitrogen and phosphorus. Those can cause a lot of excess weed growth, also known as aquatic macrophytes around our lakes and in our streams, as well as algae different types of algae, including blue-green algae which can produce toxins which can be harmful to people and their pets, and so we don't want to see that bottom sediment move back up into the water column because of the negative consequences that it leads to.
Speaker 2:I've got a little model here on the counter next to me. Those of you who are listening to this podcast might want to switch over and watch it on YouTube for this part of it, because I'm going to on the counter next to me. Those of you who are listening to this podcast might wanna switch over and watch it on YouTube for this part of it, because I'm gonna show how this resuspension of bottom sediment actually happens. So I've got a jar here on this lab bench top, I've got a little coffee stir here as well, which will simulate a boat propeller, and so we have sediment down here, collected from one of our local lakes in a jar with water over the top of it. As we look at it even before I start to stir it up we can see how the different particle sizes of sediment fall out at different rates. We've got some of the coarser particles, more of the sands down below, and then we have more of a mucky layer on the top, and that's typically how our lakes are as well.
Speaker 2:When left alone and allowed to settle, that sediment is going to sort itself as it's coming down, with the heavier particles like sand and gravel falling first, and then the lighter particles, like the marl and the muck, are going to fall on top of it. Unfortunately, then the lighter particles, like the marl and the muck, are going to fall on top of it. Unfortunately, then, the muck and the marl, which is most easily suspended, is right at the top, which is where wave action or boat propellers can re-suspend it. So I'm putting my stir down in here and I'm just going to turn it on just for a moment and you can see immediately there that we get a stirring up, especially of that muck. Most of the the gravelly sand down below that didn't stir up as much. Maybe if I put my propeller a little further down into that we can get some of that to go up as well, and it does, but immediately it falls right back down to the bottom, whereas these more finer particles of sediment like the muck continues to move around in the lake.
Speaker 2:I can see that it's starting to fall out slowly right along the surface. Here We've got a little bit of lighter color water where it's already starting to clear out. But as this sediment is in the water column, it's interacting with algae. It's interacting with weeds, and those nutrients that are now up in the water column are feeding those weeds and algae and causing them to grow more, and so we don't want to see that in our lakes. We want to see this sediment stay down at the bottom.
Speaker 2:If you want to learn more about that research study that I was talking to, you can go to our website, lakesgraceedu. We have the full report of that research study, just like we have for all of our research projects that we do. There's also a fact sheet on there. If you want a little bit more of a concise version of what we found and the basic recommendation, I'll mention that again for you all. We want to see any watercraft on our lakes that are producing a wake to stay in at least 10 feet of water so that we don't stir up the bottom sediment and don't lead to more weeds and algae growing in our lakes.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. Join us next time. It's bound to be fun.
Speaker 2:Listening to this podcast is just the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover some tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.
Speaker 1:We'll see you next time. The Doctor is In.