Welcome back to the lake!

Watershed Coordinator Emily Henrigillis and AIS Coordinator Anna Bartsch have just completed making the rounds to seven lake group meetings over the course of nine days.

On Saturday May 25th, 2019 we started the day at the Big Lake annual meeting. Big Lake has conducted treatments to control Eurasian watermilfoil and conducting work to get it under control. They welcomed us at the beginning of the meeting. There were about 35 people at the meeting and they asked great questions. We shared that we would be willing to come out on the lake and help volunteers check on the AIS found within their lake.

Due to the schedule of the day, we had to quickly leave after our introduction. We then drove down to the Village of Gresham to meet with the Red Lakes District. Anna stayed there to discuss the programs happening around the county and how our program can help. She shared that we could be willing to start a volunteer Clean Boats Clean Waters (CBCW) program on the Upper and Lower Red Lakes. They had about 20 people present for the annual meeting.

The Red Lakes are currently focused on weed management through harvesting and all of the work that comes with moving a harvester between the two lakes.

While Anna was in Gresham, Emily headed over to the Moshawquit Lake annual meeting. While there she learned about the herbicide treatment that occurred on the lake in an effort to control the invasive milfoil in the lake. They are working with the consultant Onterra to come up with plan to get the milfoil under control. Moshawquit Lake also conducts Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting (DASH) on their lake, entirely run by volunteers. This method, along with herbicide treatments is the key to getting milfoil levels as low as possible.

Emily completed a short presentation on the benefits of shoreline restoration and how the county, Connecting Our Waters, and WAMSCO can assist in the process. Again, great questions were asked by the 50+ people in attendance.

From there, we met back up to attend the Cloverleaf Lakes annual meeting. We talked with them about the water quality in their lakes and how we can continue to be a resource to them throughout the year. We learned about the efforts being made by the Conservation Wardens to keep everyone safe as well as the work being done by the lake consultants, Onterra. Emily spoke on the work she did looking at the annual variations in the reed bed off the launch in Grass Lake.

From there Connecting Our Waters was done for the day. Speaking to over 200 people in a span of a few hours – we hoped that we made an impact on even 10 percent of the people we spoke to. Small changes on the land can have great benefits to the waters we all love.

Moshawquit Lake annual meeting

View from the Legend Lake Lodge

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White Clay Lake

As the last week of May wore on, we prepared for a second weekend of meetings. On June 1st, Connecting Our Waters attended the Shawano Area Waterways Management annual meeting. A large crowd of about 150 people were present. Anna and Emily again introduced themselves and explained that they would be out on Shawano a lot this summer. Emily will be conducting a shoreline survey of Shawano Lake while Anna will be adding to the hours of CBCW conducted on the lake. She will be at the launches the SAWM interns are not monitoring.

From there, we moved on to the Lulu Lake annual meeting. This meeting was much smaller with about 30 people present. When Connecting Our Waters arrived Onterra was just wrapping up their kick-off meeting with the lake. Over the course of the 2019 summer, Onterra will be conducting field work on Lulu Lake to create a comprehensive lake management plan.

We were given 5 minutes to introduce ourselves and shared that we would be willing to help the lake group with any volunteer hand-pulling of milfoil they may want to do. Lulu Lake is an electric motor only lake so they do not have the usual CBCW concerns of other, larger lakes. The lake group seems very active and willing to help work towards total control of the milfoil in their lake.

We topped the weekend off with a Sunday evening meeting with the White Clay Lake Sportsmen Club. We used this opportunity to introduce Anna as the new AIS coordinator for the area as well tried to find someone to take us on a boat ride on their beautiful lake. The Sportsmen Club was focused on preparing to fix up their pen for the pheasants they raise for their annual hunt.

We were happy and exhausted at the end of these nine days. We talked to well over 300 people with the hopes of furthering their knowledge of shoreline restoration and aquatic invasive species. We are always looking for more meetings to attend so please make sure to invite us to yours!