Health department offers water quality tour on Round Lake

Boaters and residents on Round Lake will have an opportunity Saturday talk with the biologists who have been taking care of the lake over the last year.

A guided boat tour offered by the Lake County Health Department and the Round Lake Management Commission will launch from Beach Front Park in Round Lake Beach at 8 a.m. Officials are inviting community members to join them for the on-water lecture and to ask questions of the biologists.

"I'm going to go over what we do when we go out on a lake," said Leonard Dane, a water quality specialist who is leading the tour.

The tour will demonstrate how water quality data is collected and show the tools used in the collection process.

"I'll have all our water quality instruments, and I'll go around with a rake and pull some plants and show them some of the good native plants and show them some of the exotic plants that are out there," Dane said.

Senior Biologist Mike Adam said the department collects water from different depths for various nutrients and pollinates as part of its quality report.

The tour is part of a joint operation held with the Round Lake Management Commission. A tour last summer was sparked by the commission's interest in what the health department was doing on the lake.

"We had been out on Round Lake doing a water quality study," he said. "They were interested in learning about what we were doing out there."

Dane led the same tour last year for the commission and a few lake residents. Residents who attend Saturday's tour can learn about what they can do to keep help maintain Round Lake.

"They can kind of get an idea to get the current condition of their lake," Dane said. "If they come out, what we talk about may not be in front of their house, but it will pertain to their house."