A student initiative is increasing efforts to save the fish in Potter Lake and restore the lake to its original beauty.

Members of The Potter Lake Project installed three aerators and a skimmer last week to increase oxygen levels and clear out plant material. The team purchased the systems with money donated from alumni.

“I’m happy to be helping out with this,” said Melissa Allen, St. Louis graduate student and vice president of the project. “The lake is an asset to campus and students and the administration alike.”

The project’s goal, she said, is to restore the lake by 2011 — the lake’s 100th birthday.

Members of project created a 35-page proposal, which they presented to the administration last spring. Allen said the administration was supportive, but needed more specific details before they would contribute financial support.

While members of the project update the proposal, Allen said, students and advisers are going down the project’s list of 23 recommendations to restore the lake.

The group released grass carp into the lake last semester, but the fish were unsuccessful in removing all of the plant material and increasing oxygen levels.

As of Monday, the oxygen levels in the lake had increased significantly from levels recorded before the aeration system was installed, said Scott Campbell, associate director for outreach and public service with the Kansas Biological Survey.

He said the systems couldn’t have come at a more crucial time, citing the vegetation that now covers 100 percent of the lake’s surface. He said vegetation covered 70 percent of the surface last year.

Campbell also said he had recorded oxygen levels that were too low for fish to survive. There are no accurate estimates of the number of fish in the lake, but Campbell said several hundred fish had died since earlier this summer because of the low oxygen levels.

“I don’t ever remember seeing it as bad as it is this year,” he said.

And Campbell would know — he grew up two blocks from Potter Lake and remembered fishing at the lake as a boy.

“A lot more people used to spend time there,” he said. “Potter really in no way resembled what it looks like today.”

In the 1920s, Potter Lake used to have diving platforms on its banks and canoes in its waters.

But today, the lake has a different look. The waters are covered with a thick layer of lime green vegetation, and the sewage smell emanating from the lake is enough to keep students from getting too close.

Allen said that when the lake looked nice, it was a “gem for the campus,” and helped recruit students to the University.

“But it’s been overlooked,” said Matt Nahrstedt, St. Louis junior and president of the project. “And it’s our responsibility to bring that to people’s attention.”

Campbell said the increased rainfall this year may be a direct cause of the explosive plant growth and low oxygen levels. With increased rainfall comes increased runoff, he said, which brings in sediment and fertilizer from the roads near Potter Lake.

“It’s like taking a bag of lawn fertilizer and throwing it in the lake,” Campbell said. “It yields the same response.”

Campbell said that the lake held thousands of pounds of plant material this year, which is one of the leading causes of oxygen depletion.

The increased plant life increases oxygen levels during the day, he said. But once the sun goes down, no more oxygen is added to the water so plants, fish and decomposing material deplete what oxygen is left.

Campbell said the process may become more severe this fall, as aquatic plants die off and leaves fall in the lake and decompose.

The other problem with the lake, he said, is that, like other lakes in Kansas, Potter Lake is not natural. The proper term is reservoir, Campbell said.

Each lake in the state has a lifespan measuring how long the lake will last before it fills with sediment, he said.

Allen said that the aerators and skimmers were short-term solutions, and that the group was trying to raise the $70,000 required to dredge, essentially restarting, the lake as a long-term solution.

Campbell said he would like to see people physically remove the plant life that suffocates the lake and the fish in it.

“It’s going to take some continued study and monitoring to ultimately come to some decisions about what course of action needs to be taken,” he said. “Chances are that we’ll see these kinds of things continue to increase in frequency from now on until we do something about it.”

— — Edited by Nick Gerik