Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance

THE ISSUE People are concerned about the health of Lake of the Ozarks

OUR VIEW There is no reason to panic over E.coli

The headline says everything one needs to know about Lake of the Ozarks.

The lake, overall, is a healthy, vibrant flowing body of water, just as any dammed river should be.
Water comes in from Truman Lake, the Niangua River system and other streams, creeks and watercourses that flow through woodland, farmland and neighborhoods.

Water leaves through Bagnell Dam and makes its way downstream in the Osage River to the Missouri, Mississippi and eventually, the Gulf of Mexico.

What goes into our water here can have a tremendous impact both here and downstream.

The Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance formed a few years ago to act as as both an independent watchdog and monitor of the tremendous natural resource that is the lake.

This week they held an educational forum and, perhaps most importantly, brought people together to raise an understanding of the challenges we all face in maintaining the environmental quality of the lake that brings so much to us.

LOWA’s educational forum on the lake’s health and the impact people and nature can have on it is a good idea that ought to be expanded.

More residents need to be actively aware of how their septic system may be impacting people downhill and downstream from them. As previously noted, the environment downstream stretches for thousands of miles. It also directly impacts every resident of the lake area, whether they live on the water or not.