What's the "Flowdown" on Fond du Lac's Water Quality Program?

lems as they're beginning to impact the water, and then take action to manage the problem. We have just finished an- other successful monitoring season. We also had the opportunity to partner with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) this year. The MPCA monitors water qual- ity in all of the state's major watersheds over a 10-year rotating basin. The purpose of such monitoring is to make sure waters in all areas of the state are assessed to determine if they meet standards for uses such as recreation, fishing, and aquatic life. The Fond du Lac Reservation is mostly within the St. Louis River watershed, and this watershed was chosen by the MPCA for monitoring in 2009. We assisted biolo- gists from the MPCA in choosing monitoring sites on the Reservation. Several of our biologists went on field work excursions with state bi- ologists to share our different techniques and skills for collecting aquatic larvae, fish, and water chemistry samples. We are also shar- ing data from our separate monitoring databases to increase our un- derstanding of the water quality in the St. Louis River watershed. Lake Mapping, or Driving Back and Forth in a Boat Residents around Big Lake stared at us in curiosity as we motored back and forth across the water's surface this sum- mer. No, we weren't looking for a lost fishing rod; we were mapping the bottom of the lake. We have a system called BioSonics that allows us to send sound waves from the water's surface to the bottom of the lake. These sound waves hit the bottom and bounce back up to the receiver. The sound data is then processed and used to determine lake depth and bottom substrate. Such data can be used to assess fish habitat use, lake volume, and lake morphometry (the shape and structure of a lake basin). Since 2008, we have mapped the following Reservation lakes: Lost, Joe Martin, Simian, Third, Big, and West Twin. We have also used the BioSonics unit to help the DNR discover why several shallow lakes in Carlton County are becoming densely populated by a native aquatic plant called water shield.