Guardian Program the Focus of September 30th Member Meeting


Members of the Johnson Lake Property Owners Association met in late September to talk about the Guardian program -- a two-part effort to identify the factors affecting water quality and to reduce the risk of Eurasian Milfoil entering the lake. Click "read more" to see the minutes from the meeting.

JOHNSON LAKE PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION
GENERAL MEETING
SEPTEMBER 30, 2006


John Okerstrom, President, called the meeting to order at 10:10 AM.  It was held at the Oakland Township Town Hall in Webster.  About 20 people were in attendance.

The purpose of the meeting was to answer any questions about the Guardian program and the extension of the program (the aerial overflight).

Lois Hansen, Treasurer, gave the financial report.  There is $775.88 in the general checking account and $5,149.81 in the Guardian Program account as of today.  They are completely separate accounts.

Roy Hansen gave an update on the monitor.  Footings are in by the sign at the boat landing.  It is ready for the unit.  We do need high speed internet to run it.  Roy and Lois volunteered to have it installed at their house, at their expense.  The antenna will be on his garage.  It has been decided to wait until Spring to hook it up.  It should be up and running by May 1, 2007.  A new model camera will be in it at no extra charge.

Will we be billed monthly?  We are not sure—we paid $700.00 for installation, we may have to pay the balance due of $2,300.00 in a lump sum.

Will there be a washing station?  Yes, hopefully by this coming Spring, also the new sign should be up then too.  There will be some cost for these.

How does it work?  Eric will monitor it next year.  It is digital, only works when a boat is put in the water.  The information is downloaded to a CD to save.  How does it work for prosecution?  The DNR will use the information to prosecute.  The monitoring will also show how many boats use our landing.  We can keep track of this on a yearly basis.  The monitor also will act as a deterrent  on boats coming in.

Milfoil usually starts around boat accesses.  How is Ham Lake doing with their milfoil problem?  It is being controlled—it is not as big a problem there as Lake Minnetonka.  We have heard that birds can spread milfoil but boats are certainly the worst offenders.  100 more lakes in Minnesota have milfoil—we have to make all of us aware of it and other exotics.

The county has interns to come out and identify plants but not enough to cover many lakes.  Dick Lundborg asked if we could hire someone to do that—and get a written report.

A grant has been applied for the monitor system.  Hopefully we will get it and it will cover the monitoring program.

Since there were no other questions, the meeting was turned over to Fred Weber.

4 feet was the last secchi disk measurement.  The water clarity has been going down and down—this year there was a big drop.  This is not a sign of a healthy lake.

Fred met Alan Cibuzar in Brainard.  He was given a tour of one of Alan’s planes and also his lab—state of the art.  He also realized what the capabilities of an overflight are.  Fred had met with the DNR in Spooner about our clarity problem.  They proposed we conduct a study, which could take too long.  We know we have a run-off problem, we just need to know where the problems lie.  We suspect there are many culprits.
Alan’s presentation to the Board of Directors was good and detailed.  The overflight will lead us to the sources to correct our problems.

The flight will be conducted at 900 feet.  There will be 5 cameras and a 2 man crew.  One man will visually report sightings, the cameras will do the rest.  A 35 mm camera will take a picture of the lake as a base.  The other cameras detect chlorophyll, near infrared leaking septic, gray water, gas, oil—can even show leaves on the surface.  Another can see further into the water, tell between good and bad plant life.  The thermal camera can tell the nutrient flow.

Alan is ready to do it—would prefer to do it the day after the first deep frost.  He will do it this coming Spring if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

How to get the word out to offenders?  Talk to neighbors.  The offense may be unintentional—if we approach it that way, we give people the opportunity to fix it.  People will be more conscientious.  We want this to be advantageous to all.

Sandy Wick volunteered to help develop a plan to present the results of the overflight to the residents of Johnson Lake.

Do we have enough money?  No, we need more contributions.  We need $1,000.00 down (which we have) and the remainder before he presents the data.

Other questions were raised—what purpose is a wetland?  It acts as a filter and it is illegal to fill it in.  The DNR has good ideas and people but has no police power.

The silt from Johnson Lake Road could be a factor in our clarity—we will find out from the flyover.

Bogs seemed to be much more numerous this year.   More foam has been noticed—could be from gray water from washing machines.  We will find that out too with the overflight.

The lake level really is normal, not lower.  We are a spring fed, seepage lake,  we depend on rainfall.  That is one reason why buffers are so important to filter the run off.  We can’t control the weather or the aquafir, but we can control our own properties.

John Okerstrom thanked all for coming, and Fred for his presentation. The Board will continue to work on collecting the money.

At our next Annual Meeting a motion will be made to raise our Association dues to $20.00.

A motion to adjourn was made by Bob Polkinghorn and seconded by Cindy Nelson.  

The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 AM.

Respectfully submitted,



Joan Golding, Acting Secretary for Dan Young

Posted: Sun - October 15, 2006 at 10:26 PM      

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