Lake Stewardship

The health of Bob Lake is up to YOU! Humans are the number one cause of deteriorating lake waters. We deprive lakes of their natural shorelines and force unhealthy nitrates into the water.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Over the coming months the Lake Stewardship working group will be updating this web page with detailed information on Bob Lake and what you can do to help preserve and improve our lake’s health. In the mean time, take some time to study CHA’s website – visit the Septic Health section and be sure to watch the “Poop Talk” video. Then visit Shoreline Health and watch the “Ribbon of Life” video. Finally, checkout FOCA’s Septic Systems webpage for an outstanding list of resources to educate yourself on how septic systems work and how to maintain their performance. After all that, rethink your personal habits and those of your family.

The topic of Blue-Green Algae needs to be top of mind for everyone. We urge everyone to get informed and do everything you can to promote actions that will keep this condition out of our Lake! Here are some great resources to help:

Blue-Green Algae Background & Health Impacts fact sheet
Blue-Green Algae Drinking Water fact sheet
HKPR District Health Unit Blue-Green Algae webpage
Ontario MECP Blue-Green Algae webpage
Ontario MECP 2020 Annual Report on Drinking Water

Bob Lake Statistics

The following chart outlines some interesting details on our lake:

Water Testing

Bob Lake has been participating in the Ontario Lake Partner Program (LPP) since 1997. This program is sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and coordinated by the Dorset Environmental Science Centre (DESC) in partnership with the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations. See FOCA’s website for a great overview of the Lake Partner Program and latest published results.

In addition to the LPP, the Ministry of Environment’s Conservation and Parks (MECP) has also been testing Bob Lake since 2001 as part of a special study on lake trout lakes in the Haliburton County (nearly 100 lakes in total). A report packed with information and showing test data from 2014 – 2016 can be found here.

Lastly, for many years, Sue Pyke (our tireless Lake Steward Chair) has been sending Bob Lake water samples into SGS for various lab tests. In the past these tests have been funded by the South Bob Lake Property Owners Association. While the BLA has assumed funding for this additional testing moving forward, we would like to thank SBLPOA and Sue for all their past contributions.

In 2021 Bob Lake also participated in a Benthic Biomonitoring project coordinated by the community based research organization U-Links. You can read about all about the project on U-Link’s Benthic Project webpage and view Bob Lake’s Benthic Assessment results here.

The following charts summarize Bob Lake test results from the MECP, LPP, and SGS sources.