Thread: Jordan lake:Talked to the Proffesor at NCSU River net.

Originally Posted by jack

Sea Dancer,I don't think both of you guys are referencing the same thing.He mentioned nutrients,and you're talking about fertilizer.

Yes we are talking about two different things. The report that Crappie1968 started this thread with refers to the water being "HOT WITH NITRATES" and that is not good.

Farmers across the world spread millions of tonnes of fertilizer on their land each year. This provides plants with the essential elements they need to grow well, such as nitrogen from ammonium nitrate fertilizer. These fertilizers must be soluble in water so that plants can draw up the nutrients through their roots. However, because it is soluble, the fertilizer can be washed from the soil in heavy rain. We say that it is leached out of the soil. And that's when our pollution problems start.

The nitrate fertilizers drain from groundwater into rivers and streams. Once in a river, the fertilizer promotes rapid growth of algae (a tiny plant) on the surface of the water. This stops light reaching other water plants, and also reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. Fish rely on this dissolved oxygen: without it, they die.

Of course, plants produce oxygen when they photosynthesize. So why do the levels of dissolved oxygen decrease as the mass of plants increases? The algae thrive at first, but when they die, micro-organisms have a feast feeding on and decomposing the dead algae. The micro-organisms multiply rapidly with so much food available, and their activity uses up the oxygen in the water – unfortunately for the fish.

If the lake is full of nitrates we may be using the wrong bait. With all the nitrates in hotdogs the Crappie might bite strips of hotdogs.

Kellog

....the enviromental groups fighting closing the dam warned that they were so many pollutants that jordan would of been peasoup and unfit for life....they were wrong on that but nitrtes and other pollutants stay longer in new hope creek(river) above farrington rd......in the haw it is a straight shot to the dam and that water gets "flushed" quicker. above farrington the current is way less and that little opening below farrington rd slows everything.......in july and august lots of times u can go from one side to the other and it is noticibly greener above farrington rd....the pollutants above farringing rd stay there longer because of that bottleneck........still plentyof fish........mack

anothe note...if the haw really floods...I mean really floods the lake rises , duh, but if you look at it alot of times less water is coming out of the dam than comes down the haw.....what happens is this water comes down the haw , straight shot to the dam and it has no where to go except to take a left and go up the new hope river .....I have seen the buoys at 64 pointing upstream the current was so strong from that...
New hope creek and morgan creek join under water just above farrington rd.... that junction is the start(or was) of the New Hope River .....it has considerly less water input than the haw so that side of the lake gets flushed slower.......that is another reason the nutrients stay lonnger above farrington......hope that made sense ..mack