Dear
Friends of the Lake,
Final Report on the 2012 Weed Harvesting Program
The 2012 lake season was marred by the worst floating weed situation we have had in a number of years.
Normally, the weed harvesting program requires a small group of volunteers to accomplish the following program objectives:
1. Keep open an access to deep water for bay entrances, public launches (especially on Lake 3) and for large group docks for lake home owner or condo owner associations that belong to the FLLA as a group.
2. Keep open the lake channels connecting the lakes.
The early, extremely hot spring combined with low water levels resulted in heavy weed growth in bays, bay entrances and lake channels. To handle the extra work, especially in certain bays, we had to recruit more volunteers. This was accomplished by requiring the volunteers to come from the bays needing the extra harvesting man hours. We now have a well trained core group if a similar situation develops in the future.
Later in the summer (August/September) certain shorelines became clogged with floating weeds that created floating “weed bogs”, some as large as 30 ft wide and 300 ft long. These weed bogs restricted docked boatsfrom navigating to deeper water.
After examining the situation, with the technical help of the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District, it was determined that low water levels and early warm water temperatures allowed specific weed species with shallow root systems( wild celery, coontail, Canada waterweed(elodea)) to grow more prolifically than normal. The early, hot spring also caused these weeds to weaken and release earlier than normal, soboat traffic and winds more easily up rooted these plants creating the floating weed bogs.
To address the challenge in a timely manner we recruited and trained volunteers from the specific shorelines affected ( eg.,south and north shores of lake 3, etc.). These volunteers worked 8 hour shifts in order to address the issue.
In total, for the entire season, 45 harvesting loads were collected and unloaded into city dump trucks where the weeds were recycled to composting. The city estimates that 405 tons of weeds were removed.
This year a total of 135 man hours of harvesting was invested in the program.
A special thanks to all the volunteers andespecially to Blake Dalbec who not only organized and trained the volunteers and managed the program but also put in a lot of hours on the harvester during this difficult year.
FLLA Board of Directors
Final Report on the 2012 Weed Harvesting Program
The 2012 lake season was marred by the worst floating weed situation we have had in a number of years.
Normally, the weed harvesting program requires a small group of volunteers to accomplish the following program objectives:
1. Keep open an access to deep water for bay entrances, public launches (especially on Lake 3) and for large group docks for lake home owner or condo owner associations that belong to the FLLA as a group.
2. Keep open the lake channels connecting the lakes.
The early, extremely hot spring combined with low water levels resulted in heavy weed growth in bays, bay entrances and lake channels. To handle the extra work, especially in certain bays, we had to recruit more volunteers. This was accomplished by requiring the volunteers to come from the bays needing the extra harvesting man hours. We now have a well trained core group if a similar situation develops in the future.
Later in the summer (August/September) certain shorelines became clogged with floating weeds that created floating “weed bogs”, some as large as 30 ft wide and 300 ft long. These weed bogs restricted docked boatsfrom navigating to deeper water.
After examining the situation, with the technical help of the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District, it was determined that low water levels and early warm water temperatures allowed specific weed species with shallow root systems( wild celery, coontail, Canada waterweed(elodea)) to grow more prolifically than normal. The early, hot spring also caused these weeds to weaken and release earlier than normal, soboat traffic and winds more easily up rooted these plants creating the floating weed bogs.
To address the challenge in a timely manner we recruited and trained volunteers from the specific shorelines affected ( eg.,south and north shores of lake 3, etc.). These volunteers worked 8 hour shifts in order to address the issue.
In total, for the entire season, 45 harvesting loads were collected and unloaded into city dump trucks where the weeds were recycled to composting. The city estimates that 405 tons of weeds were removed.
This year a total of 135 man hours of harvesting was invested in the program.
A special thanks to all the volunteers andespecially to Blake Dalbec who not only organized and trained the volunteers and managed the program but also put in a lot of hours on the harvester during this difficult year.
FLLA Board of Directors
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