News

Long Lake is not the only Ramsey County Lake dealing with Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS).  As a result, the lake associations within the county are banding together to approach the county for support in remediation.

LLIA President, Rich Kusick, attended the Ramsey County AIS Task Force Meeting on May 4th, which was also attended by Ramsey County Representative, Connie Bernardy.  This year, Ramsey County receives $98,472 from the State of MN for AIS Prevention Aid.     

Since the AIS Prevention Program’s inception in 2014, Mike Goodnature of Ramsey County Park & Rec Dept. had been overseeing the program and distribution of funds.  In 2017, the County decided to hire a full-time employee, Michelle Prosser, to oversee the program and funds.  With this, they decided to form a “Task Force” to help determine what should be done and where the funding should be used.   They no longer are giving money to each lake association to use at their discretion for AIS education and prevention.  The County is keeping the money and will be outsourcing/hiring monitors to be at the County’s boat ramps as well as looking for volunteers to fill in the gaps.  Previous year’s cost per hour for monitoring was $10-12 per hour.  With the new program, the County has decided to outsource the training and scheduling of monitors at a cost of $18 per hour.  As you can see, starting with $98K, paying a new full-time government employee to oversee the program and then raise the cost of monitoring 50% for outsourcing it, there isn’t much money left to do anything else.  There was also a discussion regarding the increased need for education and prevention of other AIS such as Starry Stonewort and Flower Rush.  They are also very disruptive AIS and need to educate and prevent them from spreading into our lakes.  http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/aquaticplants/index.html

We thought the task force was going to have some input on how the money was going to be budgeted and hoping to get some for AIS treatment.  Unfortunately, we really have no say in budgeting and they were looking for the task force to help the new director, Michelle Prosser, with new ideas and running the program.  There is NO money available to be used for any treatment.

Long story short, we will need to find other sources of grants and cost sharing on our own.  LLIA, along with other lakeshore associations, are working on coordinating an effort to work together to come up with ideas of where to find these funds.  All lakeshore representatives were in agreement that each lake association shouldn’t have to come up with their own ideas of innovative treatments and funding sources.  Seems like we’re each being asked to re-invent the wheel and we’re not specialists in the field.  There was agreement that this should ultimately be a State funded and managed program for all lakes in the state/county. 

Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) performed a CLP Delineation Study on April 7, 2017 to check the distribution and density of the weed.  Very little was found and where it was found was low density as referenced in their map, which can be viewed here: Long CLP Apr2017.jpg 

As a result of this study, it has been recommended by the DNR that treatment of low density CLP is an expensive endeavor with limited return and they advise against large scale herbicide treatment. 

Being that we have virtually no offshore treatment areas that qualify as a group for this type of treatment, that would leave homeowners to decide if you want individual treatment.  If you are interested in treating your lakeshore, please email us and we can help facilitate a group discount (20+ homeowners).  Homeowners will be responsible for the cost of approximately $220-$300. 

At this point, LLIA will be focusing our efforts on milfoil.  If it is found that CLP has expanded greatly in the spring, limited shoreline treatments may make sense and we’ll review at that time.

RCWD will be performing a mapping of milfoil in the coming weeks and we’ll provide more information as available. 

Please email us at llianewbrighton@gmail.com with any questions or concerns. 

Check them out at http://llianewbrighton.org/Bylaws

We've sent a survey to registered members regarding setting up a Board of Directors.  If you're a Lake or Easement Owner, please register with the site (by clicking Join Us) and we'll provide a link to the survey to elicit your feedback and interest in participating.  

As always, we're just an email away at llianewbrighton@gmail.com.

Meeting minutes have been posted to our site at http://www.llianewbrighton.org/Meeting-Minutes.

Ramsey County Parks & Recreation will conduct prescribed burns of some county-owned prairies and woodlands this spring. Burns are planned to begin in April and run through June. Experienced county staff and contractors work carefully to manage smoke conditions while conducting burns, however, some residents may smell smoke. 

We are looking to judge interest in the Ramsey Conservation District holding an Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Volunteer Ambassador training. 

As an AIS Ambassador you will undergo training by the MN DNR.  This will prepare you to educate the public about invasive species at public accesses.  While the AIS Ambassador role is strictly educational, it plays an important part in reminding boaters of the importance of protecting our waters.

Please contact LLIA here with names and contact information if you be interested in attending this training.  If we have at least 20 people sign up, the Ramsey Conservation District will host an AIS Ambassador training here in Arden Hills.

If you have any questions, please let us know at llianewbrighton@gmail.com.

Rich Kusick

President
LLIA

Warm temps and wind are the conditions needed to erode lake ice from lake surfaces.  Throughout February and March we experienced temps above freezing, according to the National Weather Service.  On Monday and Tuesday winds reached high levels, up to 20-30 MPH with gusts up to 50 MPH, which contributed to our early ice out.  

If anyone has statistics prior to the 2015-2016 season please email them to llianewbrighton@gmail.com and we'll put them on our site.    

Members,

LLIA would like to thank the New Brighton City Council Members, Mayor Val Johnson and City Manager Dean Lotter for their tireless support of the treatment funding Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) in Long Lake.   They all sat through many meetings to listen and learn of our concerns with AIS in Long Lake and stepped up to fund the treatment for this year.  Their commitment this year is up to $15,000 toward the treatment of AIS.  You can view the City Council Meeting on 2/28/17 here at http://newbrighton.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=632   the LLIA content starts at the 20.50 minute mark and goes through the 34 minute mark.  They did a great job on the overview, discussion and comments of the LLIA.

Moving forward, annual treatment will be required as AIS can be managed but not eradicated.  Therefore, the City of New Brighton will be expecting additional parties to participate in funding for future years.  We are continuing to seek future funding participation with Ramsey County and possibly the State of MN.  Rep. Connie Bernardy has introduced state legislation to fund projects such as this.  LLIA has also applied for limited grant money available this year with the MN DNR.   The LLIA will work with the MN DNR, Ramsey County and the Rice Creek Watershed District to monitor treatment and it’s effectiveness in the years ahead. 

LLIA, as an organization, will be required to participate as well, estimating we will be required to contribute 1/3 of future AIS funding needs.  Therefore, each member’s annual contribution is necessary toward this need, as well as boat monitoring obligations.  You can sign up and contribute www.llianewbrighton.org 

I would like to thank LLIA member, Caroline Beckman for her time and expertise with assisting in preparing our request to the City of New Brighton and Ramsey County.  She assisted in multiple preparatory meetings as well as attended City Council Workshops and City Council Meetings.  I was out of town for a couple of the meetings and Caroline filled in and represented LLIA magnificently on behalf of us all.

Thanks to John Broghammer for all of his work on research, design and implementation of our new website llianewbrighton.org.  We have received many compliments on its looks, content, and ability to collect dues online.  This is a valuable tool for LLIA members as well as community members who want to stay up to date with information and upcoming events available on the website.

Thanks to John Johnson for his collection of dues and email notices for the past year.  We’re hoping the website will replace the need to send out individual emails in the near future.  In the meantime, I apologize for any duplication of information until the conversion is complete.  If you haven’t done so yet, please sign up on the website.

Finally, thank you to all who have, or will be making, their tax-deductible donations to LLIA.  We look forward to the continued growth of the LLIA organization for promoting safe recreational experiences and improved water quality.   We will be able to achieve our goals with your continued support in the future.

Sincerely,

Rich Kusick

President

Long Lake Improvement Association

Despite the short notice, I want to thank those who emailed the Council Members and attended the Council Meeting this evening.  We had approximately 12-14 lake owners in attendance. 

Rich Kusick began the discussion around the needs for lake weed control and several lake owners addressed the Council directly with their concerns on Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) and their impact on the lake. 

Our perception for City assistance is optimistic for initial funding to address the invasive weeds, but we’ll need to develop a long term, sustainable plan that involves LLIA, the City of New Brighton, and Ramsey County to continue the remediation process.

The Council will be meeting on Feb 28^th at 6:30 to vote on funding weed control on Long Lake.  We’d appreciate your attendance or voice your support of funding to: val.johnson@newbrightonmn.gov; gina.bauman@newbrightonmn.gov; mary.burg@newbrightonmn.gov; paul.jacobsen@newbrightonmn.gov; brian.strub@newbrightonmn.gov; dean.lotter@newbrightonmn.gov

We appreciate your support and involvement, 

LLIA

The City Council will be meeting on Feb 14th at 6:30 PM to discuss funding for treatment of AIS in Long Lake.  They will be discussing it and hearing from those in attendance, so please try to attend if you can or email those referenced below with your concerns.  

The City meeting on Feb. 28^th will be to vote on whether to fund it and what to expect moving forward.  The City of New Brighton will be proposing to spend up to $15,000 this year for treatment as they understand time is of the essence and doubtful Ramsey County will have any funding approved that quickly.

After this year, the City will be looking for assistance in funding from Ramsey County as well as LLIA (and any other source we can come up with).

Please see more information in the Events section for the City Hall Meetings and please voice your AIS concerns directly to our Council Members at the following email addresses: 

val.johnson@newbrightonmn.gov; gina.bauman@newbrightonmn.gov; mary.burg@newbrightonmn.gov; paul.jacobsen@newbrightonmn.gov; brian.strub@newbrightonmn.gov; dean.lotter@newbrightonmn.gov