A lot has happened on Greystone Lake since the LakeWatch Committee was formed over a year and a half ago and our original report to the Association was published on this Web site. This report is both a high-level update on what we’ve accomplished and a historical perspective on why things are and where we’re going in the future.

First, some highlights to bring you up to date:

• The Greystone Lake LakeWatch Committee now has 24 members, including four new Greystone residents.
• We’ve held three formal trash pickup sessions, each of which has yielded three to four 30-gallon garbage bags of trash. In addition, individual committee members often take a trash bag with them as they walk or paddle around the lake, picking up whatever they find. (Trash Trivia — Most common items pulled from the lake: beer cans, beer bottles, tennis balls and water bottles, in that order. Oddest item pulled from the lake: a Mickey Mouse arm. Quirkiest item pulled from the lake: a live fish in a beer can.)
• Cable barriers were installed across all three drive-down access paths to prevent intrusion and path damage by unauthorized vehicles.
• Reflective signs were installed at each access path to make it clear to non-residents that Greystone Lake is private property. The signs give us legal recourse to have intruders removed by law enforcement if necessary, and provide easily seen entrance markers to police and EMT crews in case of emergency.
• A procedure has been instituted for lowering the lake level in advance of major storms such as hurricanes, giving the lake greater capacity to handle runoff without flooding adjacent homeowner properties.
• A new bridge on the south side of Parliament Pointe now enables maintenance vehicle access to the entire west side of the lake.
• After an initial walking tour of Greystone lake in March 2000, the Committee’s first formal meeting identified nine Priority 1 (Urgent) problems in need of immediate attention, five Priority 2 problems, and 13 Priority 3 problems. By end of August 2001, all Priority 1 and 2 problems from the original list are resolved and only five Priority 3 problems remain. Special thanks go to Merle Marxen, Maintenance Committee Chairman and Greystone LakeWatch member, for facilitating so many of the problem solutions.

Much as we’d like to wear silly grins while sitting on our collective laurels and enjoying the soft and soothing sound of mutual back patting, we can’t; there is still much to do. Here are a few things currently on our plate:

• A Goose Task Force (GTF) subcommittee has been formed to study Canada goose habits and develop and implement a fact-based, effective plan for heading off a repeat of the major goose invasion we had this year. A dozen or two Canada geese is delightful. A hundred or so is too much of a good thing and we hope to avoid that next year.
• Bob Anderson, in association with the North Carolina Extension Service, has established a test plot on the lake to study the feasibility of native North Carolina water plants to help control erosion and improve water quality.
• A subcommittee has been formed to explore ways to obtain City and State financial assistance in repairing ongoing damage caused by runoff from upstream development.

We often get e-mail from residents asking why this or that is so, and asking what can or will be done about problems they see. A current hot button has to do with the mowing of the grass and the height of vegetation along the shoreline. Here’s a representative extrapolation from a recent e-mail:

"Is there a reason why the maintenance has gotten so bad recently? It has never been like this before that I can recall in the last 6 years. What's the story here as I feel there must be more to this one? …Do any of you have an opinion or an explanation of what is going on?"

There are no short answers to those questions. Fortunately, as my daughter will readily attest, I'm not known for my short answers, so I think I can give you the reasons and perspective you need. This ain't short, so get a cup of coffee and put your feet up. Ready? Here goes.

First, the Greystone LakeWatch Committee agrees completely that the performance of our grounds maintenance contractor has been less than stellar this year, and have reported this to Charleston Management for correction. The problem will be resolved one way or another in time for next year’s mowing season.

As to the high growth along the shoreline, the closest thing to a short answer is: Part of this growth is intentional to impede erosion and reduce intrusion and grass damage by the geese. With the geese mostly gone from the lake until next Spring, it will be cut back significantly this Fall.

A lake is a living organism, affected by both its own dynamics and the external forces of nature and people. And like any living organism, Greystone Lake has a history. Knowing that history and learning from it can help put the present into proper perspective.

High growth along the shore is not new on our lake. Although the above letter writer’s six years of observation seems like a long time, in the 20 year history of Greystone lake, it is not. When I moved here in '84 it was not uncommon for long grasses and those tall, feathery plants (dog fennel) to grow along the shore. (The dog fennel will, if memory serves, burst into a blaze of yellow in late September, then die back and disappear altogether in the Fall.) Coming from the concrete desert of Southern California, I was fascinated by the variety of plant life and the seasonal changes that transformed our lake each year and I made it a point to notice and learn about it. My first few summers here I also used to marvel at the relative scarcity of mosquitoes, especially living next to a lake.

Sometime in the late '80s or early '90s, the decision was made to give our lake shore a more "golf course" look and scalp the grass right down to the water's edge. That was before we ("we" being anyone who lived here or who was on the board at the time) began to understand the complex interactions of wave action, plant growth, erosion, the habits of Canada geese (only now being understood), and the contribution that dense shoreline plants make to mosquito control. It was also before Harvest Plaza was built and Hurricane Fran arrived. The golf-course cut looked pretty, but without realizing it, we'd set ourselves up for serious trouble.

In the early ‘90s the Wake County Commissioners and Raleigh City Council ignored protests by hundreds of area homeowners and allowed Harvest Plaza to be built. At first, all we noticed was the increased silting. Then a few people began noticing the increased water flow during storms. (As no one walks around the lake during a storm, it wasn't "jump up an' bite you" obvious while it was happening.) Then a few started noticing chunks of shoreline dropping off here and there. Nothing dramatic, but it was most obvious at the north end of the lake where great chunks were falling off after every storm and where, slowly but surely, a gap was forming between the shore and the old canoe dock. The mosquito population began to rise and the dragonfly, mosquito minnow and frog populations began to drop. I, like a few others, noticed, but never made the connection to short grass along the shore. Increased water flow from Harvest Plaza and other upstream development brought something else: alder seeds, which had previously never had the water velocity and volume to carry them all the way from their source to our lake.

Then came Fran. At the peak of the flooding, the lake rose seven feet at the swim club end and six feet across the lake as a whole. With no shoreline plants to hide in, the mosquito minnows all washed away. The canoe dock, already no longer attached to the shore, also washed away — leaving us without a marker to clearly indicate the extent of continuing erosion. In our cleanup efforts, we meticulously replicated the pre-Fran golf-course trim of the lake shore. Without waterside plant cover, the mosquito minnows and dragonflies failed to return, and without effective predators the mosquito population exploded. With no deep roots from tall plants to hold it, the shoreline began to shelve and drop off around the entire lake. And the geese found the easy access to the entire shore and its tasty short grass to be perfect for them and they told their friends.

Back to the alders for a moment. At first, they were concentrated at the swim club end, where the seeds apparently got hung up in the riprap stones, stopped traveling, took root and became bushes. At first we kept cutting them back. But then we got to thinking "How nice, something to help hold the stream bank." So we let them grow. They matured and began to flower each Spring. The lovely, downward pointing, early-Spring flower clusters became seeds, which dropped into the high-volume flow of each storm and were swiftly carried to our eroding shoreline, where they had absolutely no competition for root space and began to flourish.

Then a few people started to notice something interesting. Where the alders had taken root, the erosion of the shore stopped or was slowed. Last year, we (the Greystone LakeWatch Committee) wondered what would happen if we let the plant life in general grow long at the shoreline. As an experiment, we instructed the grounds maintenance company to stop mowing to the water's edge and to let the plants grow to a maximum two feet in height for a three-foot wide swath all along the shore. They started doing that last Summer, but not consistently. In some places they let it grow, but in others they cut to the water's edge. They'd start letting it grow again for awhile, then inexplicably cut it all down with the next mowing. This year, the instructions were written into the contract with the company so there could be no misunderstandings. Apparently, though, the mowing crews still have trouble with the concept of "three feet wide and two feet high." It’s better than last year, but still out of specs.

However, our problems with the contractor have led to some interesting and useful discoveries:

• Because they now have plenty of plant life to provide cover and safe breeding grounds, the mosquito minnows and dragonflies have returned in record numbers. That, in turn, has lowered the mosquito population dramatically as the favorite food of both mosquito minnows (Gambusia affinis, a.k.a. mosquitofish) and dragonfly larvae is mosquito larvae, and the favorite food of adult dragonflies is adult mosquitoes.
• Where shoreline plants are tall, shelving erosion has virtually stopped; where it is short, shelving erosion continues unabated.
• Where shoreline plants are tall and thick, goose droppings and pathway grass damage are minimal to nonexistent. Where shoreline plants are naturally short, thin, cut by homeowners, or there are concrete drain pans, grass damage and goose droppings are severe, as is geese intrusion into homeowner yards. This observation confirms the research several of us have done into the best ways to discourage a large goose population.

So, what does all the above net out to? Knowledge, which enables us to formulate and focus on knowledge-based solutions. Here are key points of Greystone LakeWatch Committee focus for the remainder of this year and for 2002:

Next time you look askance at our "shaggy" lake shore, try to think of it this way: All that vegetation is why we have a wider array of waterside wildflowers, fewer mosquitoes, more singing bull frogs and a greater variety of colorful dragonflies than probably any other lakeside community in Raleigh. Some of that can only be seen up close. So take a walk around the lake, enjoy the colorful show, hear the splash of frogs diving for cover at the sound of your approach, marvel at the aerial acrobatics of the dragonflies, and stare in awe at the great blue herons that have made Greystone Lake their home. It is truly a wonderland of nature.