ECOSYSTEM CONSULTING SERVICE, INC.

Water Supply Reservoir Management

Water Supply Reservoirs provide an opportunity to improve the quality of water that enters a water treatment plant.  Management of the reservoir by Layer Aeration, Hypolimnetic Aeration, Oxygenation, Depth-Selective Flow Routing, Focused Treatments, and other approaches can control raw water quality, improve potable water treatment efficiency, and avoid treatment problems such as:

• Avoid Taste and Odor Episodes (Geosmin and MIB from benthic and phytoplanktonic algae)
• Prevent Iron and Manganese from entering the treatment plant in raw water.
• Reduce Total, Dissolved, and Assimilative Organic Carbon that causes problems with disinfection byproduct formation, enhanced coagulation, and distribution system re-growth.
• Avoid fluctuations in pH, temperature, carbon dioxide, and buffering capacity which requires frequent adjustments to treatment.
• Avoid excessive filter backwash frequency and GAC substrate changes.

Lake Management and Fishery Habitat Restoration

Lake Restoration

Eutrophication, driven by increased nutrient loading, results in the degradation of a lake resource for a variety of important uses.  There are two approaches that can improve lake resource quality:

1. Reduce the amount of external loading from the watershed (nutrients, sediments, oxygen demand, and organics)
2. Increase the assimilative capacity of the lake (ability to accept external loads while expressing good resource quality).

Our lake restoration work involves quantitative watershed management as well as management of the internal structure and function of a lake (increasing aerobic capacity, trophic level biomanipulation, nutrient inactivation, etc.).  We develop a specific restoration plan to accomplish identified resource management goals.

Fishery Habitat Restoration

Many lakes have lost cold water habitat required for cold water fish and as refuge for algae-eating zooplankton animals.  Loss of suitable habitat may only occur for a few weeks each summer, but eliminates whole populations of desirable organisms year-round.  We have developed cost-effective methods for restoring and preserving suitable cool water habitat so trout and herbivorous zooplankton can thrive.

Watershed Management

We believe an effective Watershed Management Plan:

• Must be equitable to all within the watershed
• Must be developed with involvement by all stakeholders
• Must have a sound basis in Science

For these reasons we developed a Quantitative Watershed Management approach based on Nutrient Allocation that is established by a Local Watershed Task Force with broad representation.

Our lake restoration work also involves quantitative watershed management as well as management of the internal structure and function of a lake.