27 June 2023
On my Friday morning stroll in Schenley Park (23 June 2023) the very first thing I realized from the Higher Path was once that Panther Hole Lake regarded actually peculiar. Once I set out to the threshold I discovered why. The lake had tired out.
Panther Hole Lake was once in-built 1892 through damming Panther Hole Run and directing its outflow to a sewer pipe containing its authentic drainage, 4 Mile Run, plus sewage. Ultimate week one thing went incorrect on the outflow level and the lake emptied.
Inside of quarter-hour of my Friday name to Pittsburgh 311, workers from two Town Departments arrived at the scene. By way of mid-morning the Division of Public Works and Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority had been operating to mend the outflow.
Lately (27 June) Panther Hole Lake is most probably filling once more however I’m out of the town and haven’t had an opportunity to peer it. In the event you consult with the lake this week, depart a remark to let me understand how it seems.
In the meantime, this episode does now not repair Panther Hole Lake’s underlying issues of summer time algae blooms and its unnatural concrete edge that prohibits lakeside crops. The algae blooms partially since the lake is shallow. The lake is shallow as it’s passing throughout the commonplace lifestyles cycle of a lake, illustrated on this diagram from NHLakes: The Lifetime of a Lake.
As soon as shaped, lakes don’t remain the similar. Like folks, they undergo other lifestyles phases—adolescence, adulthood, outdated age, and loss of life. All lakes, even the most important, slowly disappear as their basins fill with sediment and plant subject matter. The herbal growing old of a lake occurs very slowly, over the process loads or even hundreds of years. However with human affect, it may well take simplest a long time.
… Sooner or later, the lake turns into a marsh, bathroom, or swamp. At this level, the drying-up procedure slows down dramatically; limnologists aren’t certain why. Sooner or later, the lake turns into dry land.
At this level eutrophic Panther Hole Lake is “outdated” and moderately like a marsh, a state that may remaining a very long time with out a lot exchange. However the lake’s 130 yr historical past is stuffed with human intervention, from building in 1892, via two “renovations” (1909 and 1957), and plans made in 2010-2016 to renovate once more. The ones plans fell via remaining November and put Panther Hole Lake on cling.
Ultimate Friday’s drain-out will most likely restart the making plans procedure. In the meantime, the marsh has attracted an American bittern, a sora, and nesting red-winged blackbirds. Two Canada ducks and an ideal blue heron had been unbothered through Friday’s low water.
Curious concerning the lifestyles phases of a lake? See:
(footage through Kate St. John, diagram courtesy nhlakes.org)