This is the third in a series of stories The Times is publishing regarding water.

Today’s edition will discuss the concerns related to water quality in Fountain Lake, and its use for irrigation in Fountain Park. There are significant challenges that go with using treated waste water for irrigating large areas of turf.

Since the town took over Fountain Park and its lake, it has been an ongoing challenge to maintain the water quality to assure that visits and activities in Fountain Park are an enjoyable, pleasant experience.

The lake itself is a closed system with treated effluent water changing only with replacement from evaporation and irrigation. The only opportunities for the water to circulate come when the Fountain operates and with a system of aeration equipment under the water.

During hot summer months, odors and algae are consistent complaints. And the park turf struggles to survive in salt-laden soil.

Water with excessively high sodium levels arrives at the waste water treatment plant after being filtered through probably thousands of water softeners in residences across town.

That sodium is not filtered out in the treatment process and remains in lake and water used for irrigation in the park.

The town has retained a water quality consultant to monitor the lake for several years, and there is improvement in the algae issues, but the sodium remains.

The soil conditions in Fountain Park are bad enough that the Greening of the Downtown Committee has suspended planting any new trees until things improve.

Greening Co-Chairman Jerry Butler said he addressed concerns about future greening projects with Community Services Director Mark Mayer last fall.

“What appears to be increasing park maintenance problems may put future projects in jeopardy,” Butler said.

“Returns on private investments may start to be questioned by donors.”

The Greening of the Downtown is a project that is supported by private donations.

Over six years the Greening project has planted 164 trees, nearly all in Fountain Park, and Butler reports there are 119 still growing, a 72 percent survival rate. The land planner that proposed the project anticipated a survival rate of 90 percent, according to Butler.

The Greening Committee expects to continue its efforts to “green” Fountain Park and the downtown area, but conditions will need to improve, Butler said.

In November the Greening Committee planted 18 trees at the site of a proposed “Musical Playground” in Fountain Park, and they replaced a tree planted with the Brown Legacy Plaza.

“We do not have another project in the planning stage at this time,” Butler said.

When the trees for the musical playground were planted it required extensive work to repair the irrigation system in the area, according to Butler. Filters in the irrigation system were plugged and require frequent ongoing maintenance.

Funding is a crucial issue related to water quality improvements at Fountain Park, according to Mayer.

“Due to budget limitations, we have been unable to support the turf as we would like,” Mayer said.

He added, however, that staff has begun a process to evaluate options for corrective action.

Coates Irrigation is studying options for separating irrigation water from the lake. He said this would allow them to maintain lower sodium in irrigation water.

The plan for this project would involve a barrier between where the irrigation water is stored and the lake in general. Mayer said an area they are looking at isolating is around the Fountain pump house.

Aquatic Resources, the town’s water quality consultant, is working on a plan for improving the mixing system in the lake.

Although studies are expected to be finished within a couple of months, either or both of these ideas are subject to limited available financial resources. There is $200,000 from the Capital Improvement Fund budgeted for Fountain Lake water quality in the current fiscal year budget.

In the meantime, ongoing issues created by the water conditions keep staff busy, Mayer said.

Scale buildup on irrigation valves and heads are increasing the maintenance workload for the limited staff.

The town is looking at acid injection into the irrigation system as a way to break down the scale build-up.

Also, the El Nino effect could help.

“We rely on rain to flush the salt out of the soil,” Mayer said.

“You can see a difference after a good storm. Unfortunately those are few and far between.”