Following the call to order and the usual housekeeping business, BLCA President Dan Merchant introduced Steve McComas, a well-known aquatic ecologist and media personality who gave a presentation on the history and effects of Eurasian milfoil and curly-leaf pond weed.

 

McComas is the owner of Blue Water Science, and makes frequent appearances through his alter ego, “The Lake Detective,” on radio programs such as “Garage Logic” with Joe Soucheray, (1500AM),  and has written extensively on aquatic issues.

 

Eurasian milfoil first appeared in the U.S. in the Potomac River in 1947, with the first reports from Wisconsin in 1966 and discovery in Lake Minnetonka in 1987.  There is a form of northern water milfoil that is native to the area, but the Eurasian variety is an invasive species, McComas said.  It arrives in phases, with the first infestation being that the plant radiates to as much of the lake as it can, followed by a second phase in which it dies back until it reaches a state of equilibrium, a process which takes six to eight years.

 

Aggressive treatments were tried in the 1990s on White Bear Lake, Rush Lake and Prior Lake, but the Eurasian milfoil has proven impossible to stop, McComas said.  The plant spreads through a process called “auto-fragmentation,” in which tiny bits of the plant break away from stems, float for several days, and then sink to the bottom, where it grows into a new plant, usually in September and October.  Motorboat wakes assist in the process, but are not the cause of the process, though milfoil is most often (95%) transferred as boats are moved from lake to lake on trailers.

 

Milfoil and curly-leaf pond weed can form surface mats, which can be raked or harvested with a special “cutter” designed to remove them, though that process can also aid in the auto-fragmentation process.

 

In addition to impeding the use of lakes for boating, fishing and swimming, the invasive species also affect aquatic life to some degree, McComas said.  Fish can swim through milfoil stalks, but they cannot swim through the curly-leaf stems.  Eurasian milfoil will only grow to a depth of six to seven feet, McComas said, while curly-leaf will grow deeper and is an “early season” plant.  The amount of available sunlight, temperatures, fish activities and the amount of nitrogen in the water all play a role in the development of these species.

 

Plant histories, lake bottom surveys and Secchi disc (light depth measurement) tests are important control tools, McComas said, and herbicides are effective in controlling curly-leaf pond weed, though less so on the milfoil variants. Aluminum sulfate is added to lakes to control phosphorous, but has no effect on milfoil.  Copper sulfate has been used to control lake algae, and experiments with the milfoil weevil are underway, but these have also not produced a long-term answer as yet.

 

Not enough data exists to chart the long-term effects of herbicide use on milfoil and curly-leaf at this point, McComas said.  Surface raking, deep harvesting and herbicide use remain the only means of control at this point, though dealing with the exotic invasive weeds can be a bit like the “whack-a-mole” game, as they can appear in one part of a lake, and not in another.

 

To the question “Is a Lake Improvement District (LID) a good thing?” Sherburne County Commissioner Felix Schmiesing said: “It depends.”  The commissioner was the second act of the July BLCA members meeting last Saturday, appearing to answer questions from residents on the status of the LID.  “I made some of these problems,” Schmiesing said, in reference to the divided opinion on the LID concept displayed recently in the Letters to the Editor column of “The Citizen.”  He had “hoped for an easy process” on the matter, he said, but it has apparently become quite complicated.

 

A LID can be created in two ways, either by a petition to the county board, or it can be created by the county board’s own action, according to a county memorandum.  If the process begins with a property owner petition, the LID may be formed only by the county board, or, if denied by the county board, by the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources.

 

If the county board approves a property owner petition for the LID, the county board must set district boundaries, identify projects and services to be done, identify methods of financing the projects, and establish the number and terms of office of LID directors and their method of election. 

 

According to the county attorney’s office and other researchers, a LID can have “broad powers” given to it by the local county board, Schmiesing said, which may include authority over water levels, pollution control and invasive species treatments.  If a LID is formed, it will “be like a township” in that the board will be elected by LID members (after the county board selects the initial LID directors), and the projects will be presented at the annual meeting.

 

At least 51% of riparian property owners would have to sign the petition seeking the formation of the LID before the county board could schedule a public hearing on the matter.  Longtime BLCA activist Kenzie Phelps said the goal is to have the petitions signed by late September, with the following public hearing set for October. 

 

A LID may present a recommended budget to the county board for approval.  The county board may finance the LID itself, or by assessing the cost of projects on benefitted properties within the LID, imposing service charges on those using LID services or by imposing an additional tax on properties within the LID.  It was also noted that the LID will “go to the taxpayers last” in the search for project funding, investigating  state and federal grants and all other funding sources before turning to residents.

 

If a LID is established, property owners within the district boundaries may petition for a referendum on the creation of the district before the effective date of the district’s establishment, according to a county memorandum provided at the meeting.  To succeed, a referendum petition must contain signatures from 26% of the property owners within the proposed LID.  The creation of the LID is then stayed until the county board can hold a special election to decide the issue.

 

Currently, there are 620 taxable parcels with owners eligible for LID membership, Schmiesing said.