Dear Platinum Lake Management,

Greetings! My name is Keith D. and the president of Lakeside Terrace Association here in Belleville, Illinois (about 15 miles east of St. Louis, Mo.) I was given a link to your web site on You Tube from a friend of mine who knows our lake situation.

Everything that was pointed out in your video could not be better exemplified as what we are going through. We are tired, to say the least, money has exhausted our savings to treat our lake with expensive chemicals and to hire an applicator.

While he did the best he could for two years, we simply could not afford him this year and as expected our 11-acre lake is 1/3 covered with filamentous / plankton algae with duck weed mixed in as well. We took a cheaper route earlier this year knowing copper sulfate will not be enough.

There was a time that was all we needed to treat it with, but the lake is over 100 years old, and as you can imagine we’ve had decades of sediment, muck, decaying vegetation.

We’ve had our share of fish kills. Last year was an exception as we went through a serious drought but amazingly no fish kill. To be honest, Richard, a lot of this algae described didn’t seriously start until around 2007.

Canada geese are starting hanging around and I blame them for bringing in the carrier seed for leafy pond weed which grew out of control that year. As far as we know, we took care of the leafy pond weed, but the geese (2 families) are still here. Whether they will continue to be a problem is unknown but to a greater portion of us the homeowners want them out of here!

I shared this video with the board members and our lake committee to see what they thought. I told them this might very well be the answer to all of our problems. My question to you. Are you able to send a representative to our area and observe what we have or can I just send you photos via e-mail with details?

I’m aware that you are based in South Carolina, but you can probably hit Google Earth on the web site and look at our lake from a satellite. This much I can tell you.

1.) Stolberg Lake was created in 1908 by a dam built on the south end.

2.) Originally, it was a 22-acre lake with a bath house, recreation facility, boat races and such and opened to the public in May 1910. It’s been said to have depths up to 30 feet then

3.) After WWll, it was sold to a home developer and properties were bought and sold. There are now 33 residents, and each homeowner pays dues( at least most of them but that’s another issue.)

4.) In the late 50’s a four-lane divided highway cut the lake down to approximately 10.5 - 11-acre surface wise with varying depths 12- to 15 feet deep.

Therein lies a lot of our sediment troubles with the highway department and the State of Illinois. There are three culverts along the north side of the lake that allows storm water from neighboring houses which probably treat their lawns with rich fertilizers.

God only knows. Not to mention other kinds of pollutions from the highway and streets. There’s also two culverts on the east shore allowing storm water off of Lakeshore Drive.

5.) It is stocked with sunfish, blue gill, bass, catfish and we used to have triploid carp but most have died, and we chose not to restock. We were advised not to bother as they were not much help as previously led to believe. Instead, they added to our problems.

6.) In the spring of 2006, the association purchased a 5hp fountain from Aquamaster. The only good thing we got out of it were lights working. We only had one solid year of the fountain working and at other times, it would work for a few months then nothing.

It is out of commission as we speak but we found someone who is currently working on it. But if I had to do it all over again I would have looked into your aeration system and pond control and saved us a ton of money.

7.) On the southeastern corner of the dam, there is a large spillway which can handle large volumes of water. We are blessed with this because we’ve used this spillway to flush out algae when the wind blows it that way. It’s a monumental task when we can do it, but it’s not always there, and we can not get the help to push it down. We’ve only done it twice but it works!!

I know this is a lot to read, but now you have an understanding of what we are going through. As stated, your video made it clear to me and I felt like I was looking at my lake. I will look forward to hearing from you and what you have to offer.

I told the board members that I would contact you and I may pass your name on to the lake committee to see what we can work out. We need help, and if it takes a few bake sales and the time it takes for our dues to handle the expense, it will pay off in the long run!

Thank you for your time.

Keith D.

(President)

Dear Keith,

Platinum Lake Management was started for this very reason.  Ten’s of thousands of HOAs / Home Owner Associations across the United States are being stuck by developers with retention ponds to care for by themselves.

Here in Greenville, SC many of these lakes and ponds were healthy farm ponds before storm water from suburban neighborhoods and HOAs were added to them.  Now they are holding pits for phosphorus that fuel algae and noxious aquatic weed growth.

Platinum Lake Management has done extensive study and networking to break into the world of lake management applicators & the evolving world of bottom aeration.  We would glad to help you be successful with a pristine & beautiful lake.

Feel free to give us a call and we can discuss your needs in detail.

Now serving Greenville SC, Spartanburg SC, Asheville NC, Charlotte NC, Winston-Salem NC, & Greensboro NC areas.

Get started. Become a member today!