A group created in response to concerns about water quality in Lake Monroe is seeking local support.

Friends of Lake Monroe approached the Brown County Commissioners on Aug. 2.

“What we are looking for is a show of support that the Brown County Commissioners support the project, (and) there might be some effort by the county to help with stakeholder outreach,” President Sherry Mitchell-Bruker said.

Friends of Lake Monroe was created about two years ago. “I was shocked to learn that this important resource had no watershed group, had no watershed management plan, so I started Friends of Lake Monroe,” Mitchell-Bruker said.

A watershed is an area of land that collects and channels water into a larger body, such as a lake, river or stream.

Fifty-six percent of Lake Monroe’s watershed is in Brown County, with 21 percent being in Monroe County and 21 percent in Jackson County, according to the group’s website, friendsoflakemonroe.org. About 2 percent of it is in Bartholomew and Lawrence counties.

“It’s a very large watershed. That’s something that is important to appreciate, because everything that goes into the streams ultimately winds up in the lake. You might think, ‘Well, this little bit of fertilizer that I put on my lawn won’t matter,’ but if that runs off of your lawn into the streams, and that happens all throughout the watershed, then that has a big impact on this lake,” she said.

She said one of the group’s goals is to “bring together Brown County and Monroe County tourism and get a stronger link between that, because we believe that strong link will help Brown County to have a stronger interest in Lake Monroe.”

Issues the lake faces include residential and urban runoff, erosion from steep slopes, and shoreline and streambank erosion, according to Mitchell-Bruker.

Nutrients from sediment in the lake fuel a blue-green algae bloom, which causes recreational advisories to be issued. It also causes problems with drinking water that’s taken from the lake.

Brown County Water Utility, which provides water for most of Brown County county, pulls water from wells in the Indian Creek aquifer, and buys water from the Indianapolis area and Jackson County, according to its water quality report.

Friends of Lake Monroe also is involved in examining the amount of trash and plastics that go into the lake.

“We’re increasingly concerned about the breakdown of plastics,” she said. “When you pick up trash off of the shoreline, then you start looking, after you get the big pieces, there’s all these little pieces of floating Styrofoam and so forth. That breaks down. What happens to that? How does that affect our drinking water?”

Friends of Lake Monroe’s mission is: “To protect and enhance Lake Monroe and its watershed through science, advocacy and public involvement working collaboratively with citizens, government and business to improve and support lake water quality.”

The group plans to work with the League of Women Voters to host forums on issues residents may have about Lake Monroe. “We want as many people from as many walks of lives that we can be involved with those sessions,” Mitchell-Bruker said.

The group has been working with The Nature Conservancy, soil and water conservation districts, the Department of Natural Resources and other agencies to come up with a set of goals for Lake Monroe, like preventing algae blooms and minimizing nutrient inputs into the lake.

Friends of Lake Monroe also is in the process of applying for a grant to develop a watershed management plan and hire a watershed coordinator. Then, the group would do an inventory of existing information and hold public meetings for input.

“If you go out and talk to people about the lake, everyone has different reasons they think we have problems. Boaters say it’s the farmers; farmers say it’s the boaters. We don’t want to jump on anyone and say, ‘This is what the problem is.’ What we want to do is look at the information, look at the data, then say, ‘What’s the problem and what can we do about it?’” Mitchell-Bruker said.

Another concern is E.coli that has been found in Little Salt Creek, which feeds into Salt Creek in the “south fork.”

“From previous studies, we see the highest spots for flowing rate was in the south fork, but that was in 1996. That’s why we want to go out and do more monitoring to figure out what’s going on now,” she said.

Grant funding would help the group do that study.

After identifying problems with the lake, more goals will be set, like a 5-percent reduction rate of total phosphorous per year and then an implementation plan.

“We can’t get implementation money without doing the watershed management plan first,” she said.

First, stakeholders have to get involved. “An action plan would be the last thing, where we say, ‘This is what we’re going to do, who we’re going to work with and this is where we’re going to get the money,’” she said.

Mitchell-Bruker said the group would need a letter of support from the commissioners by Aug. 25.

Commissioner Diana Biddle asked for a support letter template and said the commissioners would talk about the letter at their next meeting on Aug. 15.

Resident Susanne Gaudin asked if the group was working with local solid waste districts to investigate illegal dumping of items, like refrigerators, as a cause of watershed issues at Lake Monroe.

“Trash is on our radar, but I hadn’t really thought about the refrigerators and larger items,” Mitchell-Bruker said. “Hopefully, that will come out of our stakeholder interviews and raise issues further up.”

Sherry Mitchell-Bruker is not the same Sherrie Mitchell who is running for Brown County Council.

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Friends of Lake Monroe: friendsoflakemonroe.org

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