High country lakes tested
Monitoring Officer Darren Rooney at Bowscale Tarn on Molesworth Station with the monitoring boat.
Council’s Environmental Monitoring team is testing the quality of water in several Marlborough high country lakes.
Bowscale Tarn and Lake McCrae sit on DOC land in the upper Awatere Valley, and were tested in March. Lake Chalice, on the north bank of the Wairau River, was included in the monitoring for the first time.
Both lakes are on Molesworth Station – Bowscale Tarn sits between Rainbow Road and Molesworth Road while Lake McRae sits at 897m altitude in the Inland Kaikoura Ranges.
Other significant lakes in Marlborough routinely monitored include Lake Elterwater at Ward and Grovetown Lagoon.
The testing is to comply with the 2020 National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.
Probes are dropped into the deepest part to measure temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and chlorophyll, said Council’s Environmental Monitoring Officer Darren Rooney.
“Samples were also collected to test for bacteria and other water quality parameters,” he said
Results from the lake monitoring will be analysed and summarised in a report to Council later this year.
