From the President …

Last year at this time I wrote that it looks like spring may be just around the corner. This year the question is … did we really have a winter? I’ve always heard that if you don’t like the weather in Virginia, just wait 24 hours and it will change. I’ve lived here all my life and that’s not too much of an exaggeration! As I write this today (March 12) it’s snowing, the first snowfall I can remember this winter. Regardless, the daffodils are up, the trees are budding and my boat is calling my name which assures me that spring will soon arrive.

We are pleased to welcome Jeff Markiewicz to the Board as a new Director and Chair of the Safety Committee. Jeff’s background includes work for the US Navy in engineering, a lifetime of boating and membership with the US Power Squadron. We wish to thank Jeff for his interest and involvement, and are sure his knowledge, skills and abilities will help our focus on safety.

Your Board is still in need of a Secretary and a Chairs of our Finance and Nominating Committees. I sincerely hope you will consider helping in one of these areas. This organization cannot function without our Directors taking care of the routine business. The work is not overwhelming, but very important. If you have an interest or questions about serving the organization by being on the Board, please feel free to reach out to me at any ime.

Once again, your various committees are hard at work with routine spring assignments. Each spring, APCo holds annual meetings of the various Technical Review Committees as required by their operating license. These TRCs include: Debris Management, Water Quality, Aquatic Vegetation, Navigation and others. In some cases APCo must submit annual reports to FERC which must be reviewed and commented on by all stakeholders prior to submittal. In all cases we attempt to ensure that the concerns associated with our lake are properly represented.

I want to thank all those attending our January General Membership Meeting. Our guest speaker was Kristina Sage, Executive Director Tri-County Lakes Administrative Commission (TLAC). Kristina gave a very informative presentation about TLAC’s history, its role and relationship with the lake associations. I also want to encourage everyone to attend our

upcoming General Membership Meeting at the Altavista Train Station at 10:30 on April 15th.
Our guest speaker will be Keith Roberts, who will discuss fishing at Leesville Lake. Keith is an avid fisherman who not only participates on tournaments on Leesville Lake, but also guides fishing trips. We look forward to hearing what he has to say about this recreational activity.

Please mark your calendars (hopefully a Leesville Lake Association calendar) for the events coming up soon:
Beautification Day – June 10 and our Annual Membership Meeting – July 15.

Look forward to seeing you there.

David

Debris Committee Report

Pam McMillan

As most of us know, 90% of debris in Leesville Lake comes from the Pigg River. Under normal conditions, the average Pigg River height is 2-3 feet and debris intake at that level
is sporadic. However after heavy or several days of steady rainfall and the river reaches the 6 foot or above trigger, significant tons of debris flushing occurs. As of this submitted update for publication(3/15/23), there’ve been two high flow events since December, both of which were just below 7 feet. These events brought in several hundred tons of additional debris and although Appalachian has continued their attempts to remove this debris since December (mainly in the lower half of the lake), our committee disagrees that current proposed work plans from APCo managers are enough to control this new debris along with preexisting debris overall.

Due to the uniqueness of Leesville Lake (power generation, pump-back, lake level variations), and its constant presence of debris in any given area at any given time, there is no question our lake needs more attention to ensure safety during recreation and protection of private property. We strongly and consistently recommend Appalachian utilize their contractor as an addition to the main crew, and to step up the labor hours and days working on the lake. Unfortunately our pleas continue to show few results, especially for the upper half of the lake.

Appalachian relies on monthly/high flow event surveys for current debris locations and to determine their plans of action going forward. After a few months of unavailability, our committee looks forward resuming our participation in future surveys throughout the recreational season. Beyond these surveys, we can’t stress enough how much it helps to spur additional action on AEP’s part with members’ submission of debris reports. As long as debris is not too close to a dock or too shallow to retrieve, these reports must be acknowledged and the debris is a license requirement for removal. Our committee receives copies of these reports and eventually the results of action or inaction designated to them.

Please use the “Quick Link”on our LLA’s website, fill out the convenient form, and it will automatically send your report to TLAC who in turn will submit your report and monitor Appalachian’s response.
Although not necessary but can be helpful, one can attach a still photograph (no videos please), of debris; however some photo files may be too large to support. To bypass this problem one can instead click on the “Email Debris Template” in red at the very bottom of the debris form and it will automatically pull up an email you can attach your photos to.

And finally, we are in need of volunteers on the Debris Committee and could really use the extra help and motivation. If you’re interested in keeping our fire going, please approach me with your interest at this coming quarterly membership meeting and social on April 15th, 10:30am, at the Altavista Train Station, or the Annual Membership meeting/picnic on July 15th at the Leesville Lake Marina. As always, should you have any questions, concerns, suggestions or even information we may need to hear, please reach out by using the email below.

Happy spring everyone and safe boating!

Pam McMillan- Debris Committee Chair

debris@leesvillelake.org

pamaloomc@gmail.com

Navigation Committee Report

Joe Humphrey

Hazard Buoy Update

All 12 of the planned Hazard Buoys are installed.

Aids To Navigation

AEP still plans to have a Coast Guard representative survey the lake while considering our recommended 13 proposed navigation aids intended to identify the channel where the location of the channel may be in question.

Annual Buoy Survey

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) recently sent their annual notice to applicants on file responsible for buoys previously approved for installation on Leesville Lake. This applies to all buoys including Hazard Buoys and No Wake Buoys. The applicant on file is responsible to ensure, prior to April 1st, that the correct number and type of authorized waterway markers are properly placed, legible and in good condition. “Any waterway markers found not in compliance with mandatory requirements will be subject to removal at your expense and, as the responsible party, you may be subject to penalties……”. DWR personnel will be surveying the buoys after the April 1st deadline. If you have questions regarding a particular marker or concerning your inspection, you may
contact their office at (434) 525-7522 referencing the file number of your permit.

As always, please navigate our lake safely!

Membership Committee

Cynthia Coleman

As of March 2023, the LLA total membership stands at 221 households. I am continuing to work my way through the computer program LLA uses as a database—APLOS—working to make corrections and adjustments as necessary. I sent the newest email addresses to Diane Hewett for this newsletter and am working through her list to correlate it with the APLOS databank.

Regarding the Membership Survey’s top two merchandise requests of LLA Apparel, I have a t-shirt with a Leesville Lake design that the other directors liked. I am working on a LVL
hat design and may consider opening the design up to the membership by requesting photos of their lake life to be digitally transformed and used on a LVL hat. The plan is to have these on sale for our annual summer meeting July 2023. I’ll send more information about the hat design to you all in an email in the next few weeks.

We have new neighbors that come and go and since we both live on some acreage, it’s difficult to tell when they’re on the lake. We’ve decided to make more of a concerted effort to “catch” them and introduce ourselves. But once those introductions have been made, I’ll ask them to join the LLA.

I ask you members to do the same with your neighbors. Why? As a new member of the LLA Board, I see the work that LLA does with the TLAC, the organization that works with Smith Mountain Lake, Leesville Lake, and the various county governments. Plus, both LLA and TLAC are in contact and meetings with APCo / AEP, working to make our lakes the best that they can be.

I think Leesville Lake is pretty darn perfect. Except for the debris. I think everyone would agree with me. We have good organizations helping us to put some pressure on AEP to fulfill their responsibilities to these two beautiful lakes. But if we have a larger LLA membership, a membership that is active and invested in these waters, perhaps our numbers could better sway AEP to be more diligent in cleaning up the debris, responding to our debris reports, and attending to other matters under their purview.

I always remember the great example shown to me in Sunday School. It’s easy to break one dry pasta noodle; grasp a handful of dry spaghetti with two hands. . .it’s almost impossible to break.

Let’s have all those on Leesville Lake be that handful of pasta and be unbreakable with as a complete membership as possible.

Then we can all go jump in the lake together!

This quarterly column will be about native plants that live at or below the 613 foot contour level of Leesville Lake, which fluctuates between 600 and 613 feet. Each issue will feature a different species.

Salix nigra

Black Willow, Swamp Willow

 Salix nigra or black willow, as it is called, usually grows about 30 to 60 feet tall, sometimes up to and exceeding 100 feet. It needs wet soil and grows in swamps as well as on the banks of streams and lakes, being able to withstand flooding and sedimentation around its shallow roots–roots that make it an excellent erosion control plant that is used in many projects including at Smith Mt Lake. The trees produce single or multiple trunks upright and leaning from a common stump. They like full sun and can only tolerate minimal shade. Like all willows, it has slender leaves but on horizontal stems versus drooping like its weeping cousin. The finely-toothed leaves grow to 6 inches long and are green on both sides. Black willows have dark brown to black bark that develops deep grooves and a rough texture with shaggy scales. Tiny yellowish-green flowers on 2 inch long catkins come out concurently with leaves in the spring arround late March to early April with male and female on separate trees. After polination they produce silky hair seeds easily spread by the wind. The trees attract birds, butterflies, and bees.

 Although the wood is soft and weak, it is used for furniture, doors, cabinetwork, boxes, barrels, toys, wooden utensils, and pulpwood. It was one of the willows used to make fine
charcoal during the American Revolution to make gunpowder.

 The flexible young stems are used in basket and furniture making. When split in half lengthways then sun-dried, it can become the foundation of a coiled basket. The plant is usually coppiced (cut back to the stump) annually when grown for basket making. Also stems can be used for plant support steaks in the garden but be sure to dry them or they will root and sprout.

 Collect seeds when the capsules begin to dry and turn yellow-brown, then break them from the capsule and plant right away. Better yet, stems 2-4ft in length and 2-4in wide can be hammered into banks which will root quickly.

 Black willows can be found many places along the shores of Leesville Lake solitarily or in groves. The shores of the lake portion of the Pigg River has many groves in the alluvian
soil banks, outnumbered only by the cat tails.

Tolerating severe pruning, black willow makes a great plant for the upper areas of the Leesville Lake flood zone while not obstructing the view. Their shallow roots use the run-off
nutrients from grassy areas quickly. They are also great for swampy conservation zones found mainly in the backs of coves along the lake.e.

Water Quality Report

As we begin the 2023 season of increased activity on Leesville Lake, it is worth reiterating some of the water quality findings pertinent to our lake and progress regarding issues of concern. To view our water quality reports, members are directed to the Leesville Lake Association Website. There you will find Water Quality Reports for our water monitoring efforts on Leesville Lake and for our more recent activities on the Pigg River.
The 2022 report for Leesville Lake has been completed and will be posted on the website shortly (perhaps by the time this newsletter is sent). Dr. Shahady is finalizing the report of our Pigg River investigations, and this report will be posted in the coming weeks.

Briefly, Leesville Lake presents features that are characteristic of a naturally maturing lake. Based on a number of parameters, the lake is classified as mildly eutrophic and as such is a productive lake. That classification has been consistent for years. Furthermore, there are no overall health concerns to the public using Leesville Lake for recreational purposes. However, there are two threats to Leesville Lake:

(1) poor water quality of the Pigg River and (2) low dissolved oxygen in the tailwaters from Smith Mountain Lake Dam.

Although the Pigg River supplies poor quality water (bacteria, nutrients, sediment) to the lake, dilution effects and dam operations typically have prevented the Pigg River from
decreasing overall lake water quality. Largely, the movement of water from Smith Mountain Lake through Leesville Lake and into the Staunton River serves to dilute and replace the Pigg River water that enters the lake with high quality water from Smith Mountain
Lake. Therefore, the threat of bacterial contamination and impact of nutrient input is minimized. Elevated bacterial counts are limited to the headwaters and region of the lake shortly below Toler Bridge.

Although influx of water from Smith Mountain Lake is typically beneficial, dam operations can also have deleterious effects on the lake. During pump-back operations, Pigg River water may be entrained in the upper portion of the Lake rather than being flushed out. Further, although the quality of water released from Smith Mountain Lake is very good for most parameters, turbines in the dam are at a position in the water column where the dissolved oxygen content is low. During late summer and fall, the oxygen content of water released from the dam during power generation is frequently unacceptable and does not meet the licensing requirements for dam operations. Low dissolved oxygen content stresses the lake’s ecosystem and fish populations.

We continue to press AEP to address their inability to meet their license requirement for dissolved oxygen content in the water released during power generation. We and other members of the Water Quality Technical Review Committee will meet with AEP in April to discuss feasible interventions to improve the oxygen content of the tailwaters. Also, in the hope of increasing our understanding of the impact of dam operations, AEP has agreed to provide retrospective data on dam operations for those days that we have monitored water quality at various sites on Leesville Lake. Regarding the Pigg River, we have funding to continue our monitoring of the river and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is reassessing the total maximum daily load (TMDL) for the watershed. Hopefully this will be beneficial for reducing nutrients and bacteria in the river. We will keep you apprised.

On behalf of the of the LLA Water Quality Team,

Tony Capuco

Treasurer’s Report

Bill Beckett

It seems like a quiet time of preparation, as folks anticipate the warmer weather. The calendar sales have wound down, after a brisk season of transactions. There are no items of concern when reviewing the actual results to the annual budget. Our financials reflect the goals of the organization, with water monitoring being the most significant recent transactions. Beautification Day sponsorships are starting to come in and we hope to have organizations to join with us to make the lake beautiful. Thanks for your continued support.

FISHING REPORT

John Kese

SPRING is CRAPPIE time. Crappie fishing in Leesville has been excellent the last two years, so hoping for the same in 2023.

Crappy start moving to shallow water in Leesville Lake when the temperature gets to 50–55° (and start spawning around 60°).Locating the crappie schools is the hard part. If you know of brush piles or other outcroppings in 10 to 20 feet of water, that is where the crappy will be till the spawn and the best place to fish for them. During spawning, they move to very shallow water. White perch are similar, but tend to be NOT as structure oriented and stay deeper than Crappie before the spawning event.

Find the “brush piles” (or outcroppings), and you’ll find the Crappies. With Sonar, or better yet, with electronics, like Garmin LIVESCOPE , it’s easy to find the brush piles and the fish, (crappie , white perch). Catching them is as simple as “holding” your boat on the brush pile and “drop shot” style fishing for them with a minnow or small Crappie jigs from 1/32 to 1/4 ounce. If your trolling motor does not have a “anchor“ feature, just throw a “marker buoy”, so you can keep track of the brush pile as the boat drifts. (A “ MARKER BUOY” is one of the MOST PRODUCTIVE fishing tools I have on my boat.)

When I don’t have these electronics helpers , then I do this: drift at 1/2 to 1 mph in about 8’ to 20 feet deep water with the “modified drop shot rig”. I use a three or even four hook set up, depending on how deep or fast the drift speed is. ( I tie these 3 or 4 hook “modified drop shot” rigs; myself and keep plenty on the boat…as they are cheap and easy to make.) I want my line to be as close to straight down as possible, and the bottom jig 1’ to 3’ from the bottom. The higher the drift speed, the more weight is needed to keep the line level. (If the line “planes out”, I have no idea what depth the bait is at or where the fish took the bait.) The slower the drift, the smaller the jigs, and need only two or three hook set up to adequately cover the depth. I tip the hooks with minnows or threadfin shad or worms. Nightcrawler on the bottom jig and then alternate between piece of nightcrawler and minnows/threadfin shad till the fish show a preference. Crappie usually prefer threadfin shad or minnows and white perch (half of) nightcrawler. The moment I get a strike, I IMMEDIATELY put it in the “ANCHOR MODE” or throw a MARKER BUOY , and then fish the spot.(When the fish are aggressively bitting , lots of doubles and triples with this set up……and makes for a short fishing day . Also, it will amaze you how often you’ll catch channel cats or even a bass with this set up.)

An alternative to live bait is use only plastic Crappie jigs (“plastics”) sometimes as light as 1/32 ounce when in an anchored mode.  ………….when the fish are AGGRESSIVELY biting and I found the fish, it makes little difference what bait I’m using. ……Lots of fish in the boat!

Other times, the setup makes the difference, and the more stationary the bait, the better chance of a hook up.A “modified drop shot rig” replaces the end of line sinker with a jig, for an added hook point. (The deeper the water the heavier weight jig on the bottom hook and jig weights decrease on the higher hooks to keep the line from tangling.) In the usual drop shot rig, the lead weight rest on the bottom; the last jig on the “modified drop shot rig” is usually fished 1 to 3 feet off the bottom. I alternate the hooks between minnows and (pieces) of nightcrawler, till the fish show a preference. I do the same of alternating the “plastics” if fishing with jigs tipped with artificial baits. Once I locate the fish, I usually change to a single or double hook setup……SIMPLER and just as many fish.

Note the MARKER BUOYS….. THEY are my BEST HELPERS for catching FISH !!!

SEEKING……..

On behalf of the newsletter, and in respect of the wishes of John Kese, our volunteer fishing "guru", anyone who has interest and/or expertise in fishing structures or the special techniques used in fishing for the species that inhabit our lake is heartfully encouraged to write an article for an upcoming newsletter issue. No professional writing experience required! Please email articles to newsletter@leesvillelake.org. Proofing and editing will be done for you.

Beautification Day

(June 10, 2023)

The 20th Annual Leesville Lake Beautification Day is coming up and We need YOU!

Mark your calendars for Saturday June 10 from 9-3. All who enjoy our beautiful lake are encouraged to come lend a hand AND have some fun at our biggest and most important safety event of the year.

Boat drivers are needed to drag logs and debris to a collection site. If you can pilot a vessel or be someone’s first mate, please register.Tarps are available for those who need one to protect their boat. Please indicate when you sign up. Boats are needed at Leesville Lake Marina, Tri-county Marina, Runaway Bay and Brumfield area.

Also needed at the collection sites are chainsaw operators, loader operators, handlers and cheerleaders. The Brumfield area should have a very capable crew from AEP with their barge to offload debris.

For those that can’t make it to the collection sites, spring is a great time to burn those bonfire piles of driftwood to make room for more.

A big thank you to all who assisted at last year’s event. A catered ‘thank you’ picnic is planned again this year at the July membership meeting.

We expect that Bob Rankin will once again design a t-shirt that captures the enjoyment we all share on Leesville Lake. Bob has designed a volunteer appreciation T-shirt to be given to participants for many years and we appreciate his creative designs.

Watch for more details by E-mail or our Website:  https://www.leesvillelake.org.
If helping on a boat or at a collection site, register with Roy at: Beautification@LeesvilleLake.org
If you have questions, call Roy at 703-919-0074.

Last year was a great success as a result of our financial donors, our 65 volunteers with their chainsaws, front loaders, boats and labor. We ended up removing 46.92 tons of debris from Leesville Lake. 

So, please set aside June 10th to help clean up our lake to keep it beautiful and safe for boating.



Roy Kelley

Chairman – Leesville Lake Beautification Day Event