What On Earth is "Sustainable Practice?"
by Lihann Jones

The National Park Service is faced with the enormous task of protecting our national treasures while providing the public with opportunities for recreation and education. This balancing act is becoming more and more difficult as we discover the huge impacts that humans are having on individual species, on whole ecosystems, and alarmingly, on the entire fabric of life.

To lessen these impacts, the National Park Service has recently implemented the Sustainable Practices and Opportunites Plan (SPOP). "Sustainable practices" are ways of performing our duties, for the environment and the public, without seriously damaging the environment. These practices meet the mission of the entire National Park Service, "...to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations" (Organic Act, 1916).

Preserving and protecting the environment has been one of the foremost goals of the National Park Service since its creation 84 years ago. Why, then, do we need this plan? The current sustainability program will boost our awareness of what we are doing as individuals and as a national park to meet the urgent environmental issues of today.

Studies by the Bureau of Land Management have shown that the cumulative effects of past activities on public lands have led to serious environmental problems including fragmented plant, animal and fish habitats; less productive rangeland conditions; and a general decline in forest health. The Worldwatch Institute estimates that 25% of mammal and amphibian species, 11% of birds, 20% of reptiles, and 34% of fish species surveyed so far are threatened with extinction. The leading cause of these declines is human destruction of rich habitats.

Clearly, we must change how we perform our everyday tasks if we are to preserve not only our beautiful and historic national treasures, but the delicate web of life to which we are connected. We must examine the potential impacts, both locally and globally, of our most routine choices. Learn ing to do more with less, to reuse and recycle, are the first steps toward preserving our resources.

Crater Lake National Park has implemented sustainable practices in many ways. Our fee collection program, for example, has recently reduced paper usage by as much as 45%. Administrative buildings have containers for recycling everything from aluminum cans to office paper. Low-flow water faucets have been installed throughout the park. Ideas for other kinds of sustainable practices are being reviewed and implemented wherever possible.

Sustainability assessments have been done by groups of National Park Service employees specializing in areas of waste reduction, energy conservation, recycling, and landscape conservation. We have learned, however, that we cannot focus our attention only within the boundaries of the parks. Fouled air and water do not recognize boundaries. Contamination outside the national parks leads to destruction when it spreads to the fragile areas we are trying to protect.

As a Park Service, we have made it our mission to preserve important and irreplacable ecosystems. These areas will not survive as islands unto them selves. "Environmentality," "thinking green," and "Mother Earth" are not words and catch-phrases to be taken lightly. These concepts, along with the National Park Service's goals and programs, will help "life" continue into the future - not only the lives of animals, plants and trees, but our own lives and the lives of our children.

Looking Toward the New Millenium
by William M. Brock

Throughout the year, our Natural Resource Preservation and Research staff is faced with significant challenges to preserve the natural resources of Crater Lake National Park. The threats to this park range from the obvious to those yet undetected, and from within as well as from outside our boundaries. As our world grows smaller, we are increasingly aware that the Crater Lake ecosystem we strive to preserve unimpaired is but a part of a greater system.

We continue to learn about the resources for which we are responsible. Our natural resource inventories are helping us know more today about what species live in the park Through our monitoring we are learning what role they play and how they interact in the greater ecosystem. Monitoring also helps us understand if resources are within a normal range of variability. When we believe that our systems are outside of the normal range, we focus research to determine cause and effect.

In some cases, we have identified where the natural systems need intervention and we are actively restoring these systems. Scars from development have been restored with their native vegetation. The bull trout is on its way back from the brink of extinction in the park. And for the first time in a decade, we are prepared to allow natural fire to reclaim its ecological role.

The future will undoubtedly throw us some curves. But it will also present opportunities through technology and science. It will give us new tools to better understand the ecology of this park Armed with knowledge and understanding we will be better equipped to be better managers and more sensitive stewards. We look optimistically toward the new millennium.

Some Highlights from Recent Lake Research

Three trend analyses of Crater Lake, conducted with the assistance of personnel from Oregon State University and Rogue Community College, demonstrate that Crater Lake is a complex, dynamic system. For example, the population of Daphnia pulicaria, the lake's largest zooplankton, has undergone dramatic changes over the last fifteen years. We hypothesize that either non-native kokanee salmon or nutrient upwelling is affecting daphnia abundance.

Using hydroacoustic technology, we have studied the size and behavioral patterns of the Crater Lake fish population. As many fishermen noted last summer, the fish population was significantly higher than recent years. In fact, populations were approximately 23 times higher than 1998. A similar pattern occurred in followed by the near-disappearance of daphnia. Using this technology in conjunction with data from fish caught in gill nets, we will be able to quantitatively examine the effects of the fish population on other aspects of lake ecology, especially in terms of the effects on zooplankton.

Researchers from Oregon State University recently completed a study of bacterial ecology in the lake sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The bacterioplankton community in Crater Lake differs from communities found in other freshwater systems. Differences may be due to atypical properties of the study site. Crater Lake is a very deep subalpine lake with a surface area approximately four times the size of the watershed that feeds it, and phytoplankton productivity is believed to be limited by nitrogen availability. These properties are rare in lake systems and more closely resemble oceanic systems.

The exchange of nutrients in the lake system was further studied using sediment traps moored to the bottom of the lake. The ongoing study demonstrates that large pulses of particles move down the walls of the lake and these particles are a source of nutrients into the deep basin of the lake.

Color by Chance
by Thomas A. McDonough

The color of Crater Lake has always attracted special attention. It's as though no other lake in our experience is quite so blue. Colored postcards fail somehow to adequately prepare us for the real thing. Yet we need to leave with something that will remind us of the experience when we are miles away. Visiting artists have attempted to capture this color with their oils and watercolors, and more recently with their photographic films. They are not alone, however, in this fascination with the intense hue of the water.

Dr. Edison Pettit of the Carnegie Institute authored a paper in 1936 entitled Why Is Crater Lake So Blue? In this work, Pettit described the color as "deep Prussian blue" in deep water, and "turquoise blue" around the edges. Seen from a tour boat, and close-up, Pettit described the water color as appearing more like "deep indigo." Pettit analyzed several physical and chemical properties of the lake water and concluded that the samples were pure and relatively free of suspended sediments and dissolved materials. He established that the apparent color of the water was not real. Crater Lake water is, in fact, colorless. Where, then, does the intense blue of the lake come from?

The same sunlight that reflects off newly fallen snow turns our lake blue. The shorter wavelengths of sunlight (the blues) that enter the surface are scattered about by the billions of water molecules located there. Some of this blue light is scattered upward toward sightseers at the surface. The longer wavelengths (the reds, oranges, and yellows) are more easily absorbed than scattered, and they disappear. (Radiant energy is converted to heat or thermal energy in this process of absorption.)

A small percentage of the scattered sunlight reaches the bottom of the lake. Park biologist Mark Buktenica saw for himself in 1988 and 1989. He piloted Deep Rover a 7000-pound (3200 kg) submarine, on 17 dives to the bottom of Crater Lake. After shutting off all instrument lights, he detected a faint glow from the surface. This water is both blue and clear.

The clarity of Crater Lake was first measured in 1897 by Joseph S. Diller, a visiting geologist assigned to the U. S. Geological Survey. He lowered a 9.5-inch (24-cm) white dinner plate into the water in order to measure the depth at which it became invisible. This technique is still used today with little modification. Over the years, clarity readings have averaged between 100 and 120 feet (30-35 meters). Under unusually calm conditions, a maximum depth of 144 feet (44 meters) was measured in 1997. This maximum depth reading is a world record! The clarity of water here has a profound effect on the plants and animals that live in the lake. A large colony of moss thrives at a depth found nowhere else. This moss, Drepanocladus aduncus, encircles both Wizard Island and the shoreline at a depth between 100 and 400 feet (30-120 meters). Some individual plants have been located even deeper. It is the clarity of the water that permits photosynthesis to occur at such great depths. Fish were introduced into the lake beginning in 1888. Over the next 50 years, 1.8 million fish were stocked. Today, schools of kokanee salmon and rainbow trout often can be seen swimming though the water near shore. Fish in Crater Lake are known to dive down deep while looking for food. A primary food of the kokanee is a very small swimming organism named Daphnia. Kokanee have been observed feeding on this particular zooplankton at a depth of 300 ft (90 meters). This is 2.5 times deeper than what has been typically observed in other lakes of similar depth, like Lake Tahoe in California.

The color and clarity of Crater Lake are intimately connected. Increased concentrations of suspended particles or dissolved solids would both decrease the lake's clarity and alter its color. Park resource managers have a great responsibility to protect this lake from the types of human impact that have harmed other large, deep lakes across the nation. A monitoring program was set up in 1982 that allows park scientists to sample physical, biological, and chemical properties of Crater Lake throughout the year. With all this background information, we hope any change that might occur here will be quickly recognized.

Nature has afforded Crater Lake some natural protection. One way to pollute a lake is to first pollute the streams that flow into it. This body of water has no inlet. The 34 billion gallons (129 billion liters) of new water that enter the lake each year come only from precipitation and runoff from the sheer surrounding cliffs. Nutrient-rich streams are prevented from entering by the steep rocky walls of the caldera.

Scientists believe that Crater Lake formed within a few centuries follow ing the collapse of Mount Mazama, 7,700 years ago. The lake has therefore been around a long time, but its color and clarity may be a relatively recent phenomena. Warm, mineral-rich springs on the lake basin appear be the primary way chemicals are introduced into the water. These hot springs were possibly more active in the past than at the present. This might explain why the variety and concentration of phytoplanktons in the water has diminished over the centuries. Has Crater Lake slowly purified as the mineral-rich water at the bottom of the lake has seeped away? If this is so, and Hans Nelson of the U.S. Geological Survey believes it is, then our lake might not have been so clear and blue thousands of years ago.

The natural appearance of Crater Lake is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of park visitors each year. Whether seen from the Rim Drive or along the shore at Cleetwood Cove, this place has a unique charm and character. But no lake lasts forever. Someday the fires of Mount Mazama will re-ignite and the clear, deep blue water will be no more. Until then, we celebrate a rare location and ponder the events that permit the special color of Crater Lake.