Quiet coming week in county government; Lake Anna Advisory Committee green-lights HAB mitigation and remediation plan
Quiet coming week in county government; Lake Anna Advisory Committee green-lights HAB mitigation and remediation plan
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
Quiet coming week for public meetings
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
According to Louisa County’s website, there are no public meetings scheduled for the week of April 1 through April 6.
Supervisors, School Board reschedule April meetings: To accommodate the schedules of two board members and a member of county staff, the Board of Supervisors at its February 5 meeting voted to move its April meetings to the second and fifth Monday of the month, April 8 and April 29. The board typically meets on the first and third Monday.
Louisa County Public Schools is on Spring Break, so the School Board has also moved its meeting to Monday, April 8. The board typically meets the first Tuesday of each month.
Additional information about Louisa County’s upcoming public meetings is available here.
Interested in taking your talents to one of the county’s numerous boards and commissions? Find out more here including which boards have vacancies and how to apply.
Lake Anna Advisory Committee green-lights HAB mitigation and remediation plan
The Lake Anna Advisory Committee (LAAC) on Thursday night tentatively green-lighted a plan to spend about $900,000 in state aid on Harmful Algal Bloom remediation efforts at the upper end of Lake Anna. But moving forward with the plan requires approval from Dominion Energy, which owns the lake and operates it as a cooling reservoir for the North Anna Nuclear Power Station.
LAAC, an inter-jurisdictional panel composed of government officials and citizen representatives from Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange counties—the three localities home to Lake Anna shoreline—is primarily tasked with advising county officials on lake-related issues, overseeing the placement and maintenance of no wake buoys, and managing invasive hydrilla, an aquatic weed that can impede navigation.
Late last year, the panel got a new job: administering the Lake Anna Cyanobacteria Mitigation and Remediation Program (LACMRP), which will utilize $1 million from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation aimed at reining in Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) in the lake’s upper reaches. The money was included in an amendment to the state budget adopted by lawmakers last September.
The blooms, which are composed of cyanobacteria that can be harmful to human, pets and wildlife, have emerged as a persistent problem in the northern end of the lake in recent years, prompting the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) to issue “no swim” advisories every summer since 2018, and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), in 2022, to add the lake to its list of impaired waterways. HAB has been especially problematic in three lake tributaries: the North Anna River and Pamunkey Creek branches and Terry’s Run.
While the causes of HAB at Lake Anna are complex, the blooms’ growth is generally attributed to excess nutrients—namely phosphorus—in warm water. Those nutrients can come from runoff from development and agriculture, among other sources.
On Thursday, LAAC members voted to move forward with a remediation plan centered on phosphorus reduction over the next five years, though only one year of the project is funded.
Under the plan, LAAC intends to award $821,991 to EutroPHIX/SOLitude Lake Management, a pair of companies with extensive experience tackling water quality issues, particularly HAB. EutroPHIX, a division of SePro, will deploy two formulas that aim to reduce phosphorus through chemical binding, concentrating its efforts on the Upper North Anna branch.
LAAC also agreed to award $81,500 to Clean Streams, Rivers and Lakes (CSRL), a nonprofit organization started in 2021, whose mission is to research, develop and deploy environmentally friendly and innovative methods to improve water quality. CSRL plans to use a combination of beneficial bacteria and Wollastonite, or calcium silicate, to reduce phosphorus. Per LAAC’s plan, it’s slated to work in Terry’s Run.
LAAC’s decision to divvy up the money between two firms came at the recommendation of a workgroup tasked with laying the groundwork for the remediation project, issuing a request for proposals and evaluating submissions.
The workgroup received two proposals—from EutroPHIX and CSRL—and scored both based on the firms’ experience, management and technical approaches, and the cost of their services.
Harry Looney, a Louisa County resident who has gained extensive knowledge about HAB in his role as co-chair of the Lake Anna Civic Association’s (LACA) Water Quality Committee, led the workgroup and presented its recommendation during Thursday’s meeting. He acknowledged that the two firms bring vastly different portfolios to the job.
EutroPHIX and SOLitude are known commodities with deep experience addressing and studying algal-related problems. EutroPHIX comes armed with a team of biologists, chemists and ecologists, and a 410-acre research campus and lab in North Carolina where it tests its products. Its partner, SOLitude, is familiar with HAB at the lake, having conducted a LAAC-commissioned study in 2022 in the North Anna branch. The companies’ proposal was generally considered “outstanding.”
In contrast, CSRL is the new kid on the block, an innovative startup that relies on a seasonal, part-time team. The organization has done most of its work in small lakes and ponds in Northern Virginia. Its CEO owns a home on Lake Anna and, as Looney put it, “has lived” the HAB problem. In its scoring, the workgroup found CSRL’s offer “acceptable.”
Despite its limited experience, CSRL stayed in the running, in part, because its bid for the entire project area—the Upper North Anna branch and Terry’s Run—came in nearly seven times lower than EutroPHIX. While EutroPHIX bid about $1.48 million for one year of work in two tributaries, CSRL bid just over $226,000.
The workgroup ultimately decided to recommend that LAAC approach the first year of the project as a “concept development phase” in which both firms have a chance to show their work, Looney said. The committee can then review the results and select a path forward.
“We came up with an idea that we could adjust the base year…and basically do a concept development phase in the first year. Award to both contractors and basically have a bake off,” Looney said. “You have a year to show us if this thing is going to work.”
While the products both firms plan to use are safe and nontoxic, and none require registration with state regulators, calcium silicate, which CSRL intends to use, includes small amounts of aluminum. Dominion has expressed concerns about introducing aluminum into the lake because it could potentially corrode pipes and other infrastructure, according to LAAC members.
LAAC’s decision to award a contract to CSRL is contingent upon Dominion approval. LAAC members said it could take several weeks before they know if the company will sign off on the plan.
As a backup, LAAC voted to award a contract solely to EutroPHIX for work in the Upper North Anna branch if Dominion rejects CSRL’s proposal.
Project scope and objectives
LAAC’s workgroup spent the last several months laying the groundwork for the mitigation and remediation program, including setting goals and objectives, and defining its scope.
Looney told the committee that the project’s goal is relatively straight forward: “to achieve a safe and naturally balanced phytoplankton biomass” in the upper lake’s ecosystem.
To accomplish that, the workgroup laid out two objectives. The first is to reduce and sustain the level of total phosphorous in the lake’s upper reaches to below 30 parts per billion, which Looney described as the “universally recognized threshold for when a lake or waterbody is considered eutrophic” or sick.
He said that the upper end of Terry’s Run and the North Anna branch routinely exceed that threshold while the Upper Pamunkey is considered hypereutrophic with phosphorus levels registering about 100 parts per billion most of the year.
Both DEQ and the Lake Anna Civic Association administer water quality testing stations across the lake, which monitor phosphorus levels, among other health metrics.
“So, the objective is to reduce those levels of phosphorus in the upper parts of the lake—that excess level of phosphorus—down below 30 parts per billion and maintain it where the rest of the lake tends to reside naturally,” Looney said.
The second objective, which Looney described as a “byproduct” of the first, is to reduce and sustain total potentially toxic (PTOX) cyanobacteria cell counts in the lake’s upper branches to below 50,000 PTOX per milliliter, half the level that triggers a “no swim” advisory from the Virginia Department of Health.
“If you can reduce phosphorus, that’s when you reduce the energy source for the cyanobacteria and, from that, you’ll have a reduced cell count,” Looney said.
Looney noted that VDH issued its advisories over the last six years because cell counts exceeded the 100,000 parts per milliliter threshold. While those cells have the potential to produce toxins, which can pose significant health risks for humans and dogs, Looney said that VDH has never issued an advisory for the lake because toxin levels reached a threshold considered harmful to humans. On several occasions, however, toxins have reached levels considered dangerous for dogs.
“Not all cyanobacteria can produce toxins. The ones that can have a gene that allows them to produce the toxin. That gene is not always turned on. In this lake, most of our species don’t have that gene turned on. That could change. I don’t think it’s well understood in the research community what causes, environmentally, that gene to be turned on,” he said.
Still, the blooms can cause gastrointestinal illness, skin rash and related ailments, according to VDH.
Beyond the project’s goals, Looney and his team also defined its scope, deciding to focus its remediation efforts on the Upper North Anna branch and Terry’s Run. Looney noted that it makes sense to prioritize the North Anna branch because of the LAAC-commissioned study from two years ago.
“We got a professionally executed study based on modeling and data analysis by SOLitude Lake Management that tells us what the issues are in that part of the lake. We don’t have a similar study for Terry’s Run,” he said.
The group chose not to implement its remediation efforts in the Upper Pamunkey—at least for now—mostly because it doesn’t want to interfere with data collection for an ongoing DEQ study. The state funded the study two years ago with a goal of developing strategies to prevent HAB beyond near-term remediation and mitigation efforts.
Looney also noted that LAAC intends to implement LACMRP over the next five years though that’s dependent on funding. The $1 million included in last year’s state budget will carry the project through year one with about $100,000 left over for year two. Toward the end of the first year, LAAC will evaluate the results and decide how it wants to move forward depending on available funding.
The biennial state budget passed by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly in March, but not yet agreed to by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, includes $500,000 for HAB remediation at Lake Anna in Fiscal Year 2025. Beyond state aid, Louisa County officials are also lobbying for support from the federal government.
The proposals
Looney provided LAAC members with an overview of both EutroPHIX and CSRL’s plans, which include similarities and notable differences.
According to the study commissioned by LAAC two years ago, 80 percent of the phosphorus driving cyanobacteria growth in the upper North Anna branch enters the lake from the watershed while the other 20 percent is already in the waterway. That means efforts to reduce phosphorus require a multi-faceted approach.
EutroPHIX plans to address excess phosphorus within the North Anna branch by deploying EutroSORB G, a lanthanum modified bentonite (LMB) formulation that’s designed to eliminate phosphorus released from sediment. Looney said that the product is similar to Phoslock, a chemical binding agent that’s been around for about two decades and widely deployed for phosphorus reduction. He said that EutroSORB G differs from Phoslock in that it contains roughly twice the active ingredient, so less of the product is required.
To address phosphorus entering the lake from the watershed, Looney said that EutroPHIX plans to install a system covering roughly five meters in the North Anna River. The system will include monitoring devices that test the water and a device that releases a proprietary chemical binding agent.
“They’re actually doing measurements and the system is determining how much water is coming through, how much phosphorus is coming through, injecting just the right amount of chemical to chemically bind that phosphorus before it ever gets in the lake,’ Looney said.
EutroPHIX didn’t disclose the agent’s ingredients to the workgroup because the formula’s proprietary, Looney said, but it did share the ingredients with Dominion.
Pending Dominion approval, CSRL plans to deploy processed granular calcium silicate to reduce phosphorus that’s already in Terry’s Run. Looney said that the company intends to use silicate mined in New York, which contains less aluminum than silicate mined in Canada, which it’s used in the past.
Like EutroSORB G, CSRL’s calcium silicate formulation would serve as a binding agent removing excess nutrients by making them unavailable as a food source for the blooms. But Looney conceded that the formula’s efficacy is not well researched.
The nonprofit would use what Looney described as a “very innovative” method to reduce phosphorus entering Terry’s Run from the watershed, placing ceramic rocks infused with beneficial bacteria in the lake. The bacteria would essentially consume phosphorus coming from outside sources.
While the committee voted 5-1 to contract with both EutroPHIX and CSRL—contingent on a green light from Dominion—there was some concern about partnering with an entity that doesn’t have a solid track record of remediating HAB in a large body of water like Lake Anna.
Looney acknowledged that working with CSRL posed “a risk” because of its limited experience. He noted that the group has a small team that only works part-time and didn’t include a bona fide environmental scientist when it initially submitted its proposal. Since then, Looney said, the organization has added a professor from George Mason University to its team, who he described as “well respected.”
Louisa County citizen representative Robin Horne, the only committee member to vote against including CSRL, said that because the project is reliant on taxpayer money, the committee shouldn’t select an entity that’s unproven.
“if you have limited confidence in somebody, they are part-time and they are only acceptable, how do you tell taxpayers that you are funding somebody a lot of money, but you don’t really have a lot of confidence in them. I just don’t think that’s a direction you want to go,” Horne said.
But Spotsylvania County citizen representative Barbara Aikens took another view. She said that awarding a contract to both offerors gives each an opportunity to prove themselves and, if CSRL’s plan proved viable, LAAC could save money in the long run.
Robert Egan, the other citizen representative from Spotsylvania, agreed. He framed the dual award as a competition between the two companies.
“I am going to run faster if you are running on my hind parts,” he said. “Then we can make the decision a year from now. I think we have an awesome opportunity.”
Horne also asked what impact phosphorus reduction might have on the lake’s abundant fish population. Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources District Biologist John Odenkirk told Lake Anna Life & Times earlier this year that the lake’s fishery is “booming” and noted that phosphorus reduction could impact productivity.
Looney reiterated that the goal is only to lower phosphorus levels to between 20 and 30 parts per billion, which is considered “a healthy lake.”
“There may be some species that prefer those higher levels of phosphorus. One of those species that really prefers those higher levels of phosphorus is cyanobacteria,” he said.
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