Weather permitting, the Lake Pegasus Trial work will be carried out this week on Tuesday and Wednesday (14/15 June) to install and test the equipment for the aeration trial. See the map on the trial area below.
The works will involve:
Installing the air compressor in a housing underneath the small footbridge.
Installing turbidity curtains underneath the two footbridges to separate the ‘trial area’ from the rest of the lake. (See photo on right of what the curtains will look like from the surface –in yellow).
Installing the airline and aeration device into the trial area (near the new yellow buoy in the southern part of the lake). The airline and aeration device will sit on the bottom of the lake, so they will not be visible from the surface.
Also happening next week, the team will test that the aerator runs properly. They will wait for lake conditions to be ideal before they turn it on to run continuously and expect this to be within the next 1-2 months.
Information on the monitoring buoys
Two new monitoring buoys have been installed Pegasus Lake to support the aeration trial.
They take readings every 15 minutes of dissolved oxygen and temperature at 0.5 m and 5 m below the water surface.
The data can be accessed remotely via an online platform by scientists working on the trial.
This data will provide important data on lake conditions during the trial to assess the effects of the aeration.