Beach closure at Lake of The Ozarks

Just wanted to follow up on the E-coli story at the Lake of The Ozarks. A small public beach at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks was closed down October 19th  because of high levels of E. coli.

This continues from the high levels of E-coli that were found in the lake during the summer tourist season but were not reported on until a month or so ago.  The Department of Natural Resources says it closed the beach after tests Friday showed high levels of bacteria in the lake’s main channel. The agency blames run-off from last week’s rains for the contamination.

This beach is the same one that was not closed in May despite two tests showing high E. coli. An internal investigation found several other examples of beaches that were not properly closed.

DNR tested water near the beach for a lake-wide water quality survey. That study was ordered earlier this fall after revelations that the department withheld results for about a month from a different water study.

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Updating baner adds

We have been doing some housekeeping on the site the last few weeks, and in particular updating the banners that you see displayed on the left hand side of many of the pages.  This has been kind of a tedious process but thanks for bearing with us while we continue to Improve Show-Me-Lakes.  Every change we make is aimed at bringing visitors to our website a better, faster and more reliable experience while they are navigating our website.

We are also happy to announce that with the coming addition of a lake resort on Wappapello, each lake on our site will have at a minimum detailed resort listings for you to choose from in addition to the simple text links at the bottom of everypage.

If you have any particular improvements in mind fee free to drop us a comment below, we take all request seriously and do our best to accommodate our visitors.

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Missouri Lake News

Update: Lake of the Ozarks Environmental hazard

This is an update on the previous story about the untreated sewage leak into the Lake of the Ozarks:

The city of Lake Ozark has been sentenced in the case involving a sewage spill over that occurred in the fall of 2007.  According to United States District Court documents just recently filed, the small town faces a $50,000 fine and 5 years probation. The fine will be spread out in annual payments over the course of the next 5 years.

The township made its first $10,000 payment on the day of the sentencing hearing, April 22, in the state capital, Jefferson City.  Mayor Johnnie Franzeskos appeared before the judge on behalf of the city.  His appearance was mainly symbolic as he did not attempt to argue the charges and fines seeing as how the Lake Ozark Board of Aldermen unanimously accepted the terms of the U.S. District Attorneys Office plea agreement during a closed session meeting on Aug. 6, 2008.

The bilge water spill was reported in September 2007 after a lift station failed and subsequently untreated waste water flowed into Lake of the Ozarks. The spill over was investigated by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Department of Natural Resources notified the city of the leak in the pipes and the city responded to the concerns by stopping the flow.  The city did nothing however to clean up the swill that had already flown out of the broken pipe and simply noted it in its documentation of the incident.  This is the main reason the city has been charged with a crime, they made no attempt to clean up the area affected by the polluted water.

In correlation to the offense Ozark city was charged with a felony count of illegality of discharge radiological chemicals according to court documents.

Besides the fine and the probation, the city is also spending $300,000 on a sewer study in addition to upgrades and improvements to the sewer system, as a result of the spill.

All in all this is a pretty harsh penalty to hand out, but it is definitely necessary and will hopefully go a long way in influencing the city to do the right thing if a situation like this ever arises again.

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New Bull Shoals Lake Website

Just browsing the Internet today and came across a nice website that list’s information about Bull Shoals Lake.  You can check the site by clicking on this link {bull shoals lake}.  The site lists nice background information from the lake as well as some really neat history of the construction of Bull Shoals/Bull Shoals Dam.

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Promises to Clean Up Lake of the Ozarks

Governor Jay Nixon promised today that the state of Missouri was going to clean up Lake of the Ozarks.  This is a welcome change of tune to many Missourians who were angered by Nixon’s silence during the whole “delayed release of E-Coli in the lake fiasco”

The governor said the state plans to launch a “sweep of all 400 waste water treatment permit holders at the lake” WOW, if this is actually done, and done thoroughly it will be really great for Lake of the Ozarks.  The Ozarks is notoriously unclean, so a large scale clean up effort has really been needed for some time now.  Hopefully the state will follow through with these promises and clean up the lake.  We will of course monitor the situation as it directly effects resort on lake of the ozarks, as well as the Missouri tourism industry in general.

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Bull Shoals Lake Fishing Tournament

We wanted to highlight a nice fishing tournament.  The Annual Promise Land Resorts Spring Bass Tournament.  The tournament is a non profit event, entry is for 2 man teams.  The entry fee is $40 which is not bad, plus the profits go to a good cause anyway.  The prize pool for the tournament is usually around $2,000 with the breakdown going like this:

1st place = 50%

2nd place = 30%

3rd place = 20%

If you are interested in participating in the tournament next year call Sister Creek Resort at 870-431-5587.  All and all the tournament seems like a great excuse to visit beautiful Bull Shoals Lake and have some fun fishing with friends.

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Boat Show at Lake of the Ozarks

The dealers association at the Lake of the Ozarks held their annual “in water” boat show September 13th.  It was a good show with tons of boats available for visitors to browse through.  Including some really great custom boats, and speed boats that weren’t exactly for sale.  All in all the event was pretty cool, they always bring out some amazing boats too look at, and more than anything it is fun to ogle at all the hi dollar boats and talk about which ones too buy when we hit the jackpot! lol check out picks of some of the boats below:

Batman Boat

Nice Boat

Nice Boat

Missouri Water Patrol

photos by Zach Wardenburg/Lake Media

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