News & Information
Lake Will Be Drained to Destroy Pondweed
August 23, 2018, Minneapolis Star Tribune
The vast and shallow lake in Bloomington, frequented by joggers and workers on their lunch break, has become overrun with curly-leaf pondweed. The invasive plant has reduced the lake’s water quality, spurring algae blooms that appear as a layer of green gunk on the surface. To remove the plant, the city and the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District this week began to drain the lake. During the winter, the freezing temperatures will kill the pondweed’s reproductive buds found at the bottom.
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Click here to read the full article.
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Long Lake Aquatic Plant Survey - 2016
December 2016, Steve McComas, Blue Water Science
A curlyleaf pondweed delineation was conducted on April 17, 2016 and 2 aquatic plant point-intercept surveys were conducted on Long Lake (34 acres) in the summer of 2016. The May 25 survey was to evaluate curlyleaf pondweed and native plants and the July 8 survey was to look for Eurasian watermilfoil and characterize all aquatic plants.
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Click here to download the PDF report.
Minnesota's lakes - and its economic backbone - under algea siege
Sept. 25, 2015, St. Paul Pioneer Press
On a recent summer day, Dylan, Madysen and Colten King escaped the heat in time-honored Minnesota fashion: with a swim in a lake.
But the King children's trip to Lake Byllesby in southern Dakota County had another element now found in lakes across the state: huge, unsightly algae blooms.
"It looks gross, but it gets better as you go out farther," 9-year-old Colten said as he and his siblings splashed a few yards from the beach, just beyond a film of blue-green algae hugging the shoreline.
Click here to read full article.
Draining of Apple Valley lake yields limited benefit
July 21, 2014.
On July 19, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a follow up story about the Long Lake drawdown that was completed this winter. Both LLWA's president and secretary are quoted in the article. It's the opinion of Jeff Kehrer, natural resources director in Apple Valley, that the results of the drawdown did help, but perhaps not to the extent everyone hoped. You can read the full Star Tribune article here: http://www.startribune.com/local/south/267804821.html
Lake's efforts to control curly leaf pondweed make for happy days on the water
Feb. 2, 2013, West Central Tribune (Willmar, MN)
About the time that anglers are happily tossing slip-bobber rigs to sunfish in the shallow waters of Nest Lake’s northeast corner, the hard work begins. Starting usually in May, sometimes in late April, workers begin plying the waters of Nest Lake in two mechanical harvesters. They have about two months to cut and remove curly-leaf pondweed. The non-native, aquatic plant infests roughly 750 acres of the lake’s 1,050 acres. Click here to read the full article.