Special Projects
Gasoline Constituent Loading
This 2005 WLI study on Whitefish Lake examined potential public health risk from motorized watercraft-caused gasoline constituent loading to shoreline areas used for recreation. WLI analyzed the levels of BTEX (benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene), agents known to cause myriad health problems from cancer and birth defects to nervous system, liver and kidney damage. Results found high levels of benzene at City Beach. WLI concluded that the main mechanism for the high levels of benzene was when boat owners pull their transom plug on the boat ramp, petroleum effluent enters the lake adjacent to the swimming area. WLI recommended the installation of a catchment system to collect the effluent. The Whitefish City Council approved financing for the project which was completed in 2013.
Lake Usage Data
WLI developed and completed a survey in 2005 detailing recreational use of children in grades 4, 8, and 11 on Whitefish Lake. With the support of Whitefish Public Schools, WLI achieved a 90% respondent rate of total enrollment. The survey found that 89% of respondents recreated in the lake that year. While fishing was not of great interest to the kids, 87% of them swam in the lake. Of the 87%, 29% claim to have swam twenty days or more. This social survey provided additional data to support that the mechanism of exposure to the contaminants was real and the installation of the grate/catchment system at City Beach protects public health.
Tally Lake
Tally Lake is the second deepest lake in Montana and regionally unique due to its morphometric (size and shape) attributes and chemical input (humic matter) from Star Meadows. Those factors, among others, lead to a severe depletion of dissolved oxygen at depth throughout the calendar year. WLI is the first to monitor Tally Lake from the surface to bottom (445 feet). In 2008, a preliminary study was funded by Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). From 2009 to 2013 work continued via US Forest Service Resource Advisory Committee grants. From 2014 through the present, research on Tally Lake has been supported by WLI members.
Community Participation
The Whitefish Lake Institute participates in numerous committees and commissions. Executive Director Mike Koopal serves as chair of the Western Montana Conservation Commission and serves on the Water Pollution Control Advisory Council. Program Coordinator Durae Belcer attends Whitefish Lakeshore Protection Committee meetings, and Limnologist Cassie Roberts attends Haskill Basin Watershed Group meetings.
WLI is a member of the American Water Resources Association, the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, the North American Lake Management Society, the American Fisheries Society, the Society for Freshwater Science, and the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce.
