Weed Harvester Operation

Dear Friends of the Lake;

We have had several inquiries about the weed harvester. The weed harvester is being operated and maintained by the City of Forest Lake with the FLLA paying for both the running and maintenance of the harvester. In years past the harvester was run by volunteers of the FLLA. However in the last few years it became increasingly hard to find enough volunteers to operate the harvester enough so we are now paying the city to run the harvester 3-4 days a week. We have found this to be efficient and cost effective.

This year has been a heavy weed growth year and the harvester has been working since after July 4th. So far the harvester has removed over 130 tons of weeds or about 13 large dump truck loads. The weeds are being transported to a compost site for disposal.

The FLLA is required to have a DNR permit that only allows cutting of native weeds in designated areas around the lake. Generally we can only cut in navigation channels and those areas that have had heavy documented weed growth for several years. The weed harvester cannot cut weeds not in the designated areas according to the DNR permit.

More importantly the weed harvester cannot cut in areas where there is any AIS and therefore we are only cutting native weeds.

Not cutting AIS is one of the critical aspects that that must be strictly adhered to in order to not spread AIS. The weed harvester will continue operating into August and hopefully will help many of you.

If you have any questions regarding this please contact me.

Jerry Grundtner - President