Paul Diedrich has slowly seen Cedar Lake’s water worsen over the last decade, and he wants to do what he can in helping lake homeowners and the area watershed district clean it up. “I’ve seen the water quality of Cedar Lake degrade significantly since I started my job at the fisheries department,” said Diedrich, the area fisheries supervisor, from the Montrose office of the Department of Natural Resources. “It’s good to see the lake homeowners wanting to do something.” Diedrich pledged Wednesday, Sept. 14, at the regular meeting of the Clearwater River Watershed District, he would help find funding sources and provide the appropriate permits to the Cedar Lake Association members and the Clearwater River Watershed District managers, to help clean up Cedar, Swartout, Henshaw and Albion lakes. “We are not sitting back and thinking the watershed should be the solution to our situation,” said Dave Larson, president of the association. “We need to deal with septic systems. They contribute to the problem in the lake.” Over the last year, Larson has been educating lake homeowners on Cedar on many water preservation techniques, including septic systems and establishing buffer zones, to help prevent lawn fertilizer from reaching the lake. “We are in an educational process,” Larson said. “We want to prevent run-off into the lake.” Larson said his group is also looking at raising funds for treating the lake’s curly leaf pond weed infestation. It is also looking at knocking down algae blooms in the early summer with copper sulfate. The lake association had a meeting on Saturday, Oct. 1, to discuss how to treat the infestations. “These are all things we can do as a club,” Larson said. “However, part of our lake water situation is beyond our control.” Cedar Lake gets about two to three times the phosphorus load it can handle from upstream Swartout, Henshaw and Albion Lakes. CRWD officials would like to see the load reduced to 1,000 pounds per year. Carp swim upstream to the wetlands south of Cedar, where they spawn in the shallower lakes. Carp stir up sediment and help cause increases in phosphorus loads in lakes. Removing carp is relatively inexpensive and it greatly reduces phosphorus contamination from spreading. This is where Larson and his lake association have requested assistance from the watershed district. As a watershed district, the managers can implement a program to cleanup multiple lakes and waterways in a given area. “In our discussions with Dave and Paul, we are getting a feel for what’s do-able and what’s possible and we are getting a sense of what are the expectations of the people,” CRWD administrator Merle Anderson said. Anderson said he was impressed with the resolve the residents of Cedar Lake have to addressing the lake’s problems. “A lot of people want to be involved with water quality.” At meetings with the lake residents, four initial initiatives were settled on – two to be completed by the lake association and two to be completed by the watershed, Anderson said. “The lake association will deal with the curly leaf pond weed and copper sulfate treatments,” Anderson said. The watershed will look at removing carp and treating upstream waters to remove phosphorus, using alum or a ferric chloride treatment and a sediment basin before it enters Cedar Lake. Alum and ferric chloride released in the water will cause the phosphorus to become unsuspended from the water. It will then settle into a sediment basin downstream just before it enters the Cedar Lake, said CRWD Engineer Norm Wenck. Periodically, the sediment is dredged from the basin. “The treatment would take out 70 to 90 percent of the phosphorus entering Cedar,” Wenck said. “It would be a dramatic difference.” Wenck added that the treatments, combined with removing carp, would really get at the problem. The cost of a treatment facility, which consists of a shed to hold chemicals and the equipment to release them into the water stream, and a settlement basin, would cost between $150,000 and $200,000 to construct, Wenck estimated. Once up and running, it would cost about $20,000 a year to operate. But before a treatment facility is constructed, there would need to be public hearings and a project plan. Plus, a tax assessment would most likely need to be established. So, instead, CRWD managers are looking at what they can do in the interim – removing carp. Initially, the managers wanted to put in a carp trap at the inlet to Cedar Lake, on the south side of the lake. But after talking to Diedrich, they are rethinking the trap and considering just a carp boundary. Diedrich says blocking carp from entering or leaving Cedar may solve much of the problem. If carp can’t escape from Swartout, Albion and Henshaw, they will most likely freeze out, come winter. The lakes are relatively shallow, measuring no deeper than 10 to 12 feet. “The highest priority should be a maintenance-free fish barrier,” Diedrich said. “The carp will be killed naturally.” Diedrich advised against a carp trap, saying that the yearly removal of carp can be troublesome when volunteers become scarce after the first few years of operation. “I want to know the difference between a fish trap and barrier in cost,” CRWD manager Dennis Loewen said. “If they are similar in cost, I would rather have a trap.” Larson said that he and others in his association are committed to removing carp from a trap. “We’ve had a lot of good feedback with the carp trap on Clearwater River at Louisa,” CRWD chairman Marv Brunsell said. “Perceptions are good.” Diedrich said he would be willing to issue permits to remove carp, as long as he got records of how many pounds were removed. Wenck estimated that eliminating 10,000 pounds of carp a year would reduce phosphorus loads into Cedar Lake by roughly 10 to 50 percent. “There may even be some DNR funds available for a fish barrier,” Diedrich said. It was decided that the watershed would first pursue a fish barrier and keep other treatment options open if they are requested or wanted in the future. In other CRWD news: o CRWD managers approved a $371,200 general fund budget for 2006. With special assessments, the total budget was set at $515,610. o Managers denied a request from Ron Nelson of Clear
