It’s all right there in the title of this blog post: Curly pondweed is bad. It’s bad for Minnesota lakes. It might be fine in some other ecosystem’s lakes in this world, but in Minnesota lakes – it’s a menace. And right now, it’s menacing Anderson Lakes. There is a pretty good article by Laurie Blake in today’s Star Tribune about curly pondweed and a plan to eradicate it from Anderson Lakes. If you’re interested in this story, I recommend clicking the link to read the story. Ms. Blake does a good job of explaining the issue and the proposed plan.
The City has been working with the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Board to develop a plan to get the weed out of the lake. The first plan was to use chemical applications. The City did not like that plan for a couple of reasons. Dumping chemical into the lake just doesn’t seem like a good idea on its face, plus it was more expensive than a viable alternative plan.
That viable alternative plan is to drain the lake and expose the curly pondweed to a very nasty Minnesota winter, which will kill it good. Then allow the lake to refill. Yes, fish will die when the lake is drained, but a fish population will return to the lake as it refills, just as other wildlife will return as well. There are many details about how a lake is drained and how it gets refilled, but the plan to drain the lake is less expensive and less harsh on the environment than the chemical application solution.
The only sentence I take issue with in Ms. Blake’s article is the sentence that says “Eden Prairie wants to drain the lakes.” Not so. Speaking on behalf of the City, I can tell you that nobody in city government wants to drain the lake. We see draining the lake as the best alternative to solve a problem. That problem is the infestation of the lake by curly pondweed. Doing nothing when we see a problem is not responsible government. Draining the lake may seem like a rash thing to do, but we see it as the best solution for the long term environmental health of Anderson Lakes.
