Alberta Lake Management Society (ALMS) is. partner organization of Pigeon Lake Watershed Association, that is a chapter of the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS). Their organization provides many different resources and programs with aims to improve the health of lakes and waterbodies in Alberta.
LakeWatch
LakeWatch is a volunteer-based program where volunteers at each water body with safe, reliable watercrafts bring ALMS technicians to locations on the lake for sampling. ALMS technicians sample Pigeon Lake 4 times over the summer months, collecting important data including water temperature, clarity, and water chemistry parameters. Technicians also test and monitor for invasive species. Each year, a LakeWatch report is made for our lake, which summarizes the data in an easy-to-understand manner, so that it can be used to educate lake users or guide decisions made regarding the lake! Lakewatch reports also provide a great resource for monitoring changes in the lake over time, for example how phosphorus levels have fluctuated over time. ALMS also combines the data they collect and incorporates information from the Pigeon Lake monitoring buoy, including weather trends or significant weather events.
LakeWatch is an incredibly valuable program that we are so lucky to have at Pigeon Lake. In order to support this program and continue to allow us to gather this data that is essential to understanding the health of Pigeon Lake, we need to continue to have volunteers! If you have a safe, reliable watercraft and would be interested in being considered as a LakeWatch volunteer, please let us know! Sampling takes a few hours, and allows you the opportunity to observe and learn more about the health of Pigeon Lake! You can sign up to be a volunteer here!
Winter LakeKeepers
This program allows volunteers to monitor water parameters at Pigeon Lake without an ALMS technician present. This program runs during the winter, and is very important to helping us learn about lake health and ecology year around! Samples are collected by volunteers and brought to ALMS for analysis, but a water parameter probe (YSI Probe, which looks at dissolved oxygen, temperature, and conductivity). Some of the water chemistry parameters include chloride, conductivity, pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrate (NO3), Nitrite (NO2), ammonia, dissolved phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a.