Local hospitality group Eat.Drink.Sleep - which operates Tower23 Hotel & JRDN in Pacific Beach in addition to several other properties - is under fire after posting a social media post about investigating the visibly reduced quality of the water at Lake San Marcos, where the company operates Lakehouse Hotel & Resort and Decoy Dockside Dining. Commenters on the post are accusing the company of dumping pesticides in the water, which, they allege, has resulted in the death of many fish and other marine life.
The below Instagram post published to Eat.Drink.Sleep's account earlier today garnered more than 95 comments in 2 hours, but all comments have since been deleted as of this afternoon. Similar accusatory comments have also been removed from several other threads on Eat.Drink.Sleep's Instagram profile before the ability for followers to leave comments was deactivated altogether. Most of the statements were outright attacks on the company, alleging that they did something to "poison" the lake, with many commenters alleging that pesticide pellets were the cause. We reached out to Eat.Drink.Sleep representatives, including founder Brett Miller, as well as the lake's onsite marina and several Instagram commenters to get more information, but at this point we have not received any response directly from Eat.Drink.Sleep.
Earlier this week, Instagram account @ccreelfishin2 posted that "[a]bout two weeks ago my home lake decided that it would be a good idea to poison the lake to stop an algae bloom that was already going on, they did not just do this once but they have continually been dumping in more pesticides even after Fish and Game talked to them and this is the result...Anyways [their] instagram page is @eatdrinksleepsd please go show them some love ☹️☹️"
This is far from the first time that there have been complaints about the cleanliness of Lake San Marcos. The state Environmental Protection Agency declared the lake to be impaired or polluted in 2002, at that point the lake was privately owned by the La Jolla Development Group. We have not confirmed who currently owns the lake but believe that it may be managed by the Lake San Marcos Community Association, who we have contacted for more information to no avail.
The man-made lake, which was formed in 1946 when the San Marcos Creek was first dammed, is the focal point of about 2,400 homes, in addition to the hotel, and has long been contaminated by runoff and algae blooms. Algae blooms are known to starve the lake of oxygen, which have resulted in the lake and creek being listed as "impaired water bodies" under the federal Clean Water Act.
A group that included San Diego County, the cities of Escondido and San Marcos, Vallecitos Water District, and the property owners, resolved to undergo a cleanup plan this year to remove pollution. As reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, the cleanup plan includes three parts - "a chemical treatment that causes phosphorus to settle out of the water; efforts to clean up creek flows before they enter the lake; and a system to remove stagnant, nutrient-rich water from the bottom layers of the lake."
The plan was supposed to start this May, where officials would begin by testing a chemical treatment that uses alum salt to capture floating phosphorus and render it inert. The process is reportedly common in water treatment systems and was believed to not affect fish or other animal life. We are unsure if this is what caused the current problems at the lake.
Nick Buhbe, a consulting working on issues at Lake San Marcos, did email us pointing out that the Citizens Development Corporation (CDC), the company that owns Lake San Marco, applied a fast-acting algaecide to the lake on Friday, June 1 and Monday, June 4. The application was done in accordance with an aquatic pesticide permit issued by the State Water Resources Control Board (Water Quality Order No. 2013-0002-DWQ). The goal of the algaecide application was to address excessive algal growth in the lake. A third treatment was to follow shortly after the algaecide application. The treatment was reportedly "successfully applied" to the lake in May 2017 and August 2017 and was shown to be effective in removing phosphorus from the lake. Post-treatment monitoring is being performed in accordance with the approved Work Plan Addendum.
"All available information collected at the lake has been reviewed and considered, and we strongly believe that the treatments will have the intended effect and will not further exacerbate the fish kill issue," commented a CDC representative. "The chemical applications are being undertaken over many days in part to ensure that lake health is maintained during and after the treatments."
A regularly scheduled public workshop will be held on June 13, from 9:30-11am, to discuss recent and upcoming activities related to the testing and cleanup work. It will take place at the Fairway Room at St. Mark Golf Course Clubhouse, located at 1750 San Pablo Drive in San Marcos. The workshop will include information on current lake conditions including the fish kill and increased algal growth, updated outline/schedule of the path forward for site cleanup, description of upcoming field activities and document submittals, results of recently performed pilot testing activities, including the alum treatments and a public question-and-answer period.
For more information on Eat.Drink.Sleep, visit eatdrinkandsleep.net and see the post and comments below.
