Abstract |
A survey of the chemical status of 252 lakes, representing an estimated 2424 lakes, was conducted in the Southern Blue Ridge province and in Florida during Fall 1984. The survey was part of the Eastern Lake Survey designed to quantify the number of acidic lakes and lakes with low acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) with surface area greater than 4 ha. Of the 102 lakes sampled in the Southern Blue Ridge, none were acidic (ANC less than or equal to 0) and only 1.4% of the population of 258 lakes were estimated to have low ANC (less than or equal to 50 micro equiv/L). In contrast, an estimated 22% of the lakes in the Florida subregion were acidic, and 35.3% were estimated to have low ANC. Almost 90% of the lakes in the Southern Blue Ridge were reservoirs. These lakes generally had moderate ANC values (median = 250 micro equiv/L) and had low concentrations of aluminum, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and sulfate compared to those of Florida, the upper Midwest, and the Northeast. The lakes in the Southern Blue Ridge showed a high degree of chemical homogeneity relative to those of other regions in the East. (Copyright (c) 1988 American Chemical Society.) |