Chemicals, Plant Management and Habitat...

[Team Otter]

I encourage all of you to actively play a role in holding property owners, lake association members, MN DNR, and the Governor's Office to a standard that us sportsmen and women can tolerate.

Please follow the 'sticky' post at the top of this page titled "Lake Weed Spraying Feed Back". Lots of good information is already there and more will be sure to come. I plan to use this post as an information highway that ultimately will carry us to drafting a letter that will be signed by all of you to then be sent on to the Capitol.

The time is now folks. Don't be swayed by activist groups such as MN for Healthy Lakes. They don't have a clue. Get educated and get active! I'd love to have company at these meetings I'm going to...

[Matt C]

Im with ya TO. As a member of my lakes assoc. It is very important for us sportsmen to stand up. I kept my mouth quite at the deal in Mankato because i was not up on it enough...but that got me to reading and getting educated.

The MN healthy lakes is a load of [PoorWordUsage]. It should stand for a bunch of rich folk wanting no weeds so they can pleasure cruise, and ski around with out fish and weeds...

Write your local congress person. Have a favorite lake? Get involved in their lake association. Just cause they live on the lake, doesn't mean they can do what they want....

Sportsmen need to speak up, without it, you may lose your fishing hole and remember weed are shallow, thats duck hunting also...

[Hookey]

T.O.

Sorry I missed this meeting with the Lake Washington Property Owners.

The DNR IS asking for the sportsmen's input as well as our support as 'some' of the Lake Associations in this state are not as conservative when it comes to chemical use as the Lake Washington Property Owners have been.

Attempts by chemical companies teaming with property owner Groups in MN have been made that would grant property owners rights to destroy large areas of habitat. They must be stopped.

Anyone interested in getting involved needs to speak up.

Many will read these posts and few will reply.

Register with FM and make your opinion known !

[Hookey]

Take two minutes to read the failed bill and understand what/who we are up against !

http://wdoc.house.leg.state.mn.us/leg/LS85/HF0893.0.pdf

Ken

[Muskiefool]

Unfortunatly MN for Healthy Lakes has a clue, look around this site http://www.mnhealthylakes.org/ well organized, well funded and have the ability to make people think weeds are killing their lakes LMAO, the group you put together a few weeks ago should get back together and asses some objectives on both sides of the issue and start to move in a direction that will educate property owners, fishermen and the gentry about all the facts, and for cripes sake the DNR is not the enemy as some of these groups would like you to believe.

[Team Otter]

Ken,

Don't sweat it. We can chat more about it this weekend. The meeting on Tuesday went really well.

FYI

I pasted all of the links to the 'sticky' post too so that they don't get lost in the shuffle.

[Team Otter]

John,

We'll be getting back together in late May or early June, following the lake surveys that are to be conducted on Lake Washington and others within the area.

[smnduck]

Thanks again T.O. for all of your work. An idea for getting info out would be to talk to the tackle and bait shops in the area and get them to help spread the word. Maybe a flyer of some sorts with crucial bullet points. They have a big investment in the resource also. It would only help them in the long run. It would expose the issue to a larger base also. Maybe some sort of flyer that people can sign as a petition.

[Team Otter]

Good idea.

[Team Otter]

Got a real nice letter from the President of the Lake Washington Association and posted it in the 'sticky' post at the top of this page.

[Team Otter]

This needs to stay at the top.

[Team Otter]

TTT

[Team Otter]

Keepin' it up there.

[Muskiefool]

Great work and greatly appreciated keep it up.

[Team Otter]

Well, thank you but I've had a lot of support too. Like they say; someone has to do it.

[Team Otter]

I will quite possibly be heavily involved in drafting the vegetation management plan for Lake Tetonka this summer in conjunction with the MN DNR. This is great news for the sportsmen and women who use southern MN lakes for fishing and/or recreational purposes. Stay tuned for further details...

[mr marbles]

Bump--Bumpity bump!!

[Team Otter]

I'm happy to report that I confirmed with Regional DNR personnel this afternoon that I will be involved in assisting draft a vegetation management plan for Lake Tetonka in 2008. Our first meeting, as a group, is this Saturday at the Fisheries Office in Waterville. Really looking forward to this experience...

I will post updates, etc. as that information becomes available.

[Muddog]

Bump.

I have seen two lakes that had all the weeds removed. One was in Florida. All the fish died. The other was Gorman Lake in the mid 80's, all the fish died.

If someone wants to remove the weeds from a lake? The only reason I could think they would want to do it is. They want to cut down on the boat traffic of the fisherman. Not only boats but Ice fishermen too. It won't be a private lake but (BUOW) dam near.

Killing the weeds = Killing the fish.

There is only one reason why a rational person would want to do this. Don't for get money talks and look who has it.

My $.02.

[harvey lee]

I dont know but I will ask, wouldnt it be good to eridacate all the Curly leaf weed in the lake? I would assume that many other weeds will die off in the process. But once the Curly leaf is gone, many of the other natural weeds would grow back in time.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Team Otter]

Tom,

In some respects you have the right idea but unfortunately Mother Nature doesn't see it that way. And, in Southern MN, we have additional curve balls that play into native vegetations ability to thrive on any given lake that is also being chemically treated for Curly Leaf Pond Weed. There is also the factor of chemical suspectibility as it relates to native vegetation and whether or not those plants can "weather the storm" during the chemical application period. And, finally, in some Southern MN lakes, if Curly Leaf Pond Weed was eliminated from the lake, there would be no habitat because of the lack of native vegetation.

Environment and Native Vegetation Relationship

Curly leaf pondweed dies off in late June or early July. This is also when native vegetation should be thriving and ultimately attempting to "replace" the curly leaf pondweed. However, Mother Nature has a say in this; wind and water clarity often gets in the way. Native vegetation needs light to survive; in southern MN, water clairty and algae bloom is common-place in late June and early July.

Historical Data on Chemical Use

Aquathol K (Liquid) and Aquathol Super K (Powder) is currently what is being used to chemically control the spread of curly leaf pondweed. There is ZERO historical data on long-term effects from the chemical being used on mammals, fish and water quality. An "unknown" is being applied.

Lake Washington has 19 native species of vegetation; one of the most diverse lakes in the area. Nearly 60% of those native plants have a moderate to high suspectibility to Aquathol K and Aquathol Super K. Being that native vegetation is allegedly not trying to grow until the curly leaf pondweed dies off in late June or early July, what's to say there isn't some negative effect on the native's chance to grow and survive?

[Hookey]

Tom ,

Presently there is not a chemical available that would kill only the pondweed. The DNR really cannot kill off all of the pondweed in the lake without killing off all of the plant life in the lake.

Aquathol, a 'safe' chemical is applied to the leafs and stems of the weed early in the spring to prevent the production of turions (seeds) but the roots of the plant remain alive after treatment. While some control is gained by chemical treatment the plant is not killed.

Treating lake weeds is like treating weeds in your backyard. Especially if your backyard 'is' a lake.

Weeds are considered unsightly and undesirable. Many people see NO value in weeds and would be happy if they were all dead. The problem is most people (myself included) do not know the difference between a plant and a weed especially if it lives in a lake.

To make matters worse the chemicals we dump in the water do not know the difference either they kill or damage what ever plant they contact, good or bad, some more than others. That is why it burns me so when people claim they intend to restore native plants by poisioning the pondweed. Even if the natives near the pondweed are not up and growing when the pondweed is killed I would suspect they have a hard time growing when covered in dead pondweed.

Jamison and I have been posting this information in hopes that people slow down and think about the affects chemicals have on other plants the lakes as well as the fish.

You can't depend on the DNR doing what is best for the lakes when the DNR is forced to do what they do not want to do.

Hookey

[Team Otter]

Great "add-on" Ken. Thank you.

[Team Otter]

Refer to this post for additional feed back and follow-up. Thank you.

Vegetation Management

[Muddog]

So, It all comes mack to the 70's. When all the farm land in the area was tiled and the county ditches were dug. Before that time the lakes in the area were clear compaired to today.

With that said. As long as they try to get the water to flow as fast it can, out of the fields into the ditches and to the lakes. The water quality in the lakes will not improve! Untill this is addressed you are barking up the wrong tree. You have to slow down the water flow. Throght marshes that have not been opened up with a drainage ditchs. If you poke a hole in a filter it won't work!

So if you want to talk Mother Nature. Give her a chance!

[Team Otter]

There is no question water quality plays a big part in this but vegetation management does too. Each one of these issues is part of their own plan within a large lake plan that is rolled out each year to each lake that carries an association or not.

[Team Otter]

And this one too...

[harvey lee]

So is it a know fact that the chemical that is applied to kill the pondweed also then for sure going to kill other native weeds or is that just an assumption one is making?

If the pondweed continues to grow I would assume that all the other lake weeds will suffer from the the grow of the pondweed. Doesnt one still need to eradicate the pondweed to clean it up?

[250XB]

The chemicals used now will kill other aquatic plants it comes in contact with. Also you will never eradicate curlyleaf pondweed by spraying it. It is like the farmers they have to spray every year for weeds. I don't think it is a good idea to be spraying the curlyleaf when that is about the only vegetation for the fish. The push for killing aquatic vegetation comes from the lake home owners not the fisherman if that tells you something.

[Muddog]

I can see that it's mainly home owner. Not one mention of EW Milfoil. Then again you don't have it die off and wash ashore.

You would think There would be a contact spray (like Roundup) that you could spray on the plants when they flower and before they go to seed in June! Yes they flower. It is the only time of year I can't go onto the water to get releaf from my allergies. You got to love those negative ions man.

As long as the environment in the water favors pondweed, you will have pondweed. The key is to change the environment back to one that favors the other locale lake weeds. Other wise you might as well be chaseing your tail. It would be a job, with there game plain you'll have a job forever.