Results of water testing place Bear Lake in the top 15% of similar sized lakes in Michigan. Water clarity, as measured by Secchi Disk is excellent. BLWA VP Jeff Sanborn and community volunteers Dan Zatarga, Jim Koning and Bill Fronk regularly gather samples and coordinate water testing in and around Bear Lake.
Learn more below.
Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program
Water quality sampling has been done on Bear Lake in Manistee County under the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program (CLMP) for many years. Secchi disk readings have been taken for over 25 years under the CLMP on Bear Lake by William Fronk and David Adams and others. Charles Wolverton has conducted the total phosphorus and chlorophyll-a water quality monitoring for about 10 years. The continuity of these water quality parameters is critically important to detecting trends in water quality in Bear Lake.
Learn more about the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring program and find records of 2021 results and 2022 results.
E-coli Testing
Through support from the Bear Lake Watershed Alliance, Manistee Health Department District #10 tests samples for E-coli collected from various locations around Bear Lake. Sample report from 2015.
Storm Water Discharge Testing
Ongoing efforts are always in place to improve our lake. One such activity taking place is storm water testing. Check out this video to learn more about why we perform storm water discharge testing. You can find the latest detailed results here.