When we built our place in 1956, we had a nice sandy shoreline--as it likely had been for a century or longer. As boats and their wakes got bigger and more frequent, soggy, muddy,
silt moved in. New underwater plant species appeared.
Waterlogged brush appeared along with the
silt as more home lots were built nearby. Waterlogged leaves replaced pine needles. Some of the limbs were clearly "loppings" produced through yard maintenance.
It has since dawned on me that the
silt was coming from my own property! It was late last season that I heard two loud splashes along my shoreline. When I investigated the source, I found that boulders had dislodged from the rocky bank. One was very large--the size of a folded roll-a-way bed--and would take an excavator to reset it back into the hillside.
"
Silt" is loamy soil washed from lakeside lots. I've seen loam loaded on barges, perhaps destined for island lawns.
Yesterday, I noticed the same
silt situation at a Florida lakefront. Rain-fed, the lake level has been gradually raised since Hurricane Ian. I photographed my neighbor's grass sod being washed (underneath) of soil, producing the same
silt situation in the shallows. Like Lake Winnipesaukee, powerboat activity encourages shoreline erosion--which encourages algae growth--which clouds the water.
I'll upload the photo next week, and later opine on "power-clearing"--the good and bad.