The Water Quality Committee Chair for the Lake Anna Civic Association (LACA) has read and understands the proposed guidance and recommends that VDH approve the guidance and use it starting in 2021.  The guidance provides a detailed and structured approach to recreational advisory management when cyanobacteria blooms occur in the State.

LACA requests that VDH continue to consider protocols that could include the use of citizen water monitoring groups like LACA’s for cyanobacteria bloom monitoring and formalize the basic protocols in future iterations of this document.  A citizen monitoring group that has been certified by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to collect water samples and field parameters at level 3 quality of assurance levels should be able to collect water samples for cyanobacteria monitoring under approved VDH or DEQ protocols.  These samples could be sent to VDH laboratories for analysis using certified instruments to conduct the cell counts and toxin measurements.  The protocols could include limitations that would ensure limited lab resources (time and funding) are not overwhelmed by the addition of the citizen water sampling activities.