Stormy Lake is a lake on the

Kenai Peninsula The Kenai Peninsula ( Dena'ina: ''Yaghenen'') is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai (, ) is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, also known as Three Bay Lake. It is located north of the town of Kenai. The lake has been the target of two efforts to eradicate

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

and re-introduce native flora and fish.

Name and location

Stormy Lake is a lake on the

. It is located within the

Captain Cook State Recreation Area Captain Cook State Recreation Area is a park on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. It is located on the shores of Cook Inlet at the northern terminus of the Kenai Spur Highway, about north of Kenai and north of Nikiski. Both the Inlet and the recrea ...

. The

prevailing winds In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on ...

can sometimes produce whitecaps on the lake, giving it its name. It is also known as ''Three Bay Lake'' because it consists of three nearly separate areas connected by channels. Access to the lake is via the

Kenai Spur Highway The Kenai Spur Highway is a highway on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. The road begins at a junction with the Sterling Highway in Soldotna and provides access to the towns of Kenai and Nikiski, dead-ending at the entrance to the Captain Cook ...

, about north of Kenai. Facilities include a boat launch, overlook, picnic area, wading/swimming area, and a small, boat-in only campground.Stormy Lake Boat Launch and Day Use Area

Alaska Department of Natural Resources The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is a department within the government of Alaska in the United States of America. The department has the mission of responsibly developing Alaska's resources by making them available for maximum use and ...

Recreational Boating Access Projects
Southcentral Projects,

Alaska Department of Fish and Game The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) is a department within the government of Alaska. ADF&G's mission is to protect, maintain, and improve the fish, game, and aquatic plant resources of the state, and manage their use and development in ...

Ecology

The area around the lake consists of low hills and swampy areas. In a 1966 survey, the vegetation cover was predominantly

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

, and

alder Alders are trees comprising the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus comprises about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few sp ...

. Several small streams flow into the lake, and the outflow from it eventually drains into the

Swanson River The Swanson River ( Dena'ina: ''Yaghetnu'') is a stream, long, on the Kenai Peninsula of south-central Alaska in the United States. Beginning at Gene Lake in the Swanson Lakes district, it flows southwest then north to Number Three Bay on the G ...

. The lake freezes over in the winter.

Invasive species

Stormy Lake has been the site of two separate efforts to remove

.Earl, Elizabeth
Fish population booms in Stormy Lake

Peninsula Clarion The ''Peninsula Clarion'' is a regional newspaper published in Kenai, Alaska that serves the population of the Kenai Peninsula. They also publish the ''Peninsula Clarion Dispatch'' which is a free weekly circular released each Wednesday with loca ...

, July 10, 2015 In 2012 the lake was closed to the public and the

introduced

rotenone Rotenone is an odorless, colorless, crystalline isoflavone used as a broad-spectrum insecticide, piscicide, and pesticide. It occurs naturally in the seeds and stems of several plants, such as the jicama vine plant, and the roots of several member ...

, a

piscicide A piscicide is a chemical substance which is poisonous to fish. The primary use for piscicides is to eliminate a dominant species of fish in a body of water, as the first step in attempting to populate the body of water with a different fish. They ...

, to eliminate highly aggressive

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus '' Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a ...

that had apparently been illegally introduced to the lake and were decimating the native fish population. Although the pike are a native species in some parts of Alaska, they are not native to the Kenai Peninsula.invasive Northern Pike

The only way to remove them entirely was deemed to be to poison the entire lake and then re-introduce native species. Some native fish were rescued by harvesting their eggs and taking them to fish hatcheries before the treatment began, but it is believed that

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name i ...

would be able to re-populate the lake on their own due to their migratory nature. Several boats were used to deploy the rotenone, with additional personnel walking the lake edge with sprayer backpacks to ensure it reached the shallower waters not easily navigated by boats. A drip station dispensing

potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...

, which neutralizes rotenone, was installed at the lake's outlet to prevent contaminating other water bodies downstream.

Elodea ''Elodea'' is a genus of 6 species of aquatic plants often called the waterweeds described as a genus in 1803. Classified in the frog’s-bit family ( Hydrocharitaceae), ''Elodea'' is native to the Americas and is also widely used as aquarium ve ...

, an invasive plant, was also discovered in the lake during the treatment in 2012.Captain Cook State Recreation Area

, Division of parks and outdoor recreation A multiagency task force was created to deal with this issue and monitor lake conditions. The lake was treated with

fluridone Fluridone is an organic compound that is used as aquatic herbicide often used to control invasive plants. It is used in the United States to control hydrilla and Eurasian watermilfoil among other species. Fluridone is sold as a solution and as ...

, which affects plants but not fish, in order to remove the elodea. The lake remained closed for several years in order to give the re-introduced population of

Dolly Varden trout The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. It belongs to the genus ''Salvelinus'', or true chars, which includes 51 recognized spec ...

and Stormy Lake's rescued population of genetically distinct

arctic char The Arctic char or Arctic charr (''Salvelinus alpinus'') is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. Its distribution is Circumpolar North. It spawns in freshwater and populatio ...

McChesney, Rashah
Stormy Lake treated to kill northern pike

September 9, 2012 time to grow and begin spawning naturally in the lake, as well as making certain that the Elodea infestation had been completely removed and could not spread to other nearby bodies of water such as the

References

External links

Map of the Captain Cook SRA showing size and shape of the lake
{{authority control Lakes of Alaska