Solar Bee? What is that?

Nope, a Solar Bee is not an insect that comes from the sun to sting you, it is a solar powered circulation device. The company that sells these suggests a total of nine of these be placed in the lake. The idea is to keep the lake water constantly circulating, stopping the algae blooms. That is an over simplification of the process but you get the idea.
Our lake management commission is looking into these as well as the other options I described yesterday. Will they work? As with pretty much every option presented as ways to cleanse our lake there are those promoting it as well as the detractors. Some of the literature from the
Solar Bee company indicates alum treatments are not effective. Of course SweetWater, the company that provides alum treatments indicates otherwise.
Solar Bee has a proposal to put nine of these in our lake at a cost that from what I can tell would be around 2 1/2 times the cost of an alum treatment. There is also continuing maintenance on these units. I do not envy lake management their job in assessing the probability of success in each of the projects they are considering. I do know the commission is working hard developing a plan to get and keep our lake in shape. Those folks are fishermen, boaters, and lake lovers in general and I feel sure they will recommend to the board their best option to achieve their goal.
We have tried so many things in the past. It is not that the prior attempts were not in good faith, it is just so difficult to make an impoundment like ours into a clear body of water. It is to put it simply unnatural. Sit a tub of water outside for a month or so without changing the water and see how it looks. Ugly! We still have the aerators in the lake and the shed with the compressor sitting by the rec center on the lake shore. Well intentioned but did it work? We also had the aerator near the dam that was finally pulled out. We have air tubes running all over the bottom of the lake that were supposed to oxygenate our lake and alleviate the problems. Did they? We had the well drilled by the northwest inlet to provide a stream of cool, clear water. Why was it turned off? You get the picture. Many previous attempts have been made and here we sit with an extra hot summer and almost no rain. You see the results.
This post is already too long and is of course my opinion only, not board or lake commission opinion, so please take it as such, simply trying to keep you up to date and knowing the lake issue is on the front burner. No one could have predicted a summer like this and we are paying the price.
Ken Dillenburg