9.e Discussion on letter of support for Big Marine Lake AssociationSCANDILA
Staff Report
Date of Meeting: January 16, 2018
To: City Council
From: Neil Soltis, City Administrator
Re: Letter of support for Big Marine Lake Association grant
Background: Mike Blehert. President BMLA is again applying for an Aquatic Invasive Species
(AIS) grant from Washington County and is seeking a letter of support from the City of Scandia.
Issue: Should the City provide support to the BMLA grant request?
Proposal Details: The following information was provided by Mike regarding the 2017 program
and plans for 2018.
I corresponded with you last year regarding the Big Marine Lake Associations (BMLA)
work to kill and reduce to acres of Eurasian Water Milfoil (EWM) in Big Marine Lake
(BML). I'm pleased to report that results for 2017 were excellent. The BMLA is again
applying for a grant from Washington County to continue this work. Our long term goal
is to reduce EWM in BML to less than five acres per year and progress has been
excellent. As you may recall, this project started in 2009 and really took off in 2015
when large state grant funds were first available for ideas generated by Lake
Associations, Counties and other groups. That is, the grant ideas came from the bottom
up rather than dictated by the state. The program and Big Marine Lake (BML) in
particular has been successful in that we have spearheaded ideas that have reduced
EWM in BML from 38 acres in 2014 to 6.2 at the end of 2017. It's also exciting that the
largest remaining area of EWM in BML is one acre. Compare that to 5 to 20 acre spots
in each of the last nine years. The root ball injection idea that the BML tested last year
worked very well. It took until late June to refine the equipment and application
procedure so we'll be ready to use it in late May and June in 2018 when the EWM is
shorter and easier to inject with a long lance. We had planned to employ divers to
inject the root balls, but for a variety of reasons injection was easier and safer when
applied with long lances from a pontoon boat. This will be especially important in
future years as size of the areas are further reduced. The small areas will still need
treatment to stop the EWM from repopulating and coalescing into larger areas.
I would like to attach your response to the 2018 grant proposal in early February 1.
A copy of the letter approved by the Council in 2017 is attached.
Options:
1. Approve a Letter of Support for the 2018 grant
2. Take no action on the request for a Letter of Support
Recommendation:
Option 1— Approve the Letter of Support