The Eau Claire Lakes Area Property Owners has collaborated with the Drummond School District to introduce lakes to 7th graders using indoor labs and half-day lake experiences. In the fall, sessions focus on critical habitat, water quality, invasive species, and aquatic plants. Spring sessions include macro invertebrates, shoreline restoration, food and energy cycles, and a scavenger hunt. The program is nick named “No child left on shore” and has been very effective in getting young people trained and interested in lake protection. Last summer, for instance, a 12 year old discovered Eurasian water milfoil on George Lake and because of early detection of this pioneer population control efforts were able to begin before it became a widespread problem.
Aquatic Invasive
Management: Plans – Are They Working: Kevin Gauther presenter. Attended by Bob Baker and Greg Heber
Gave a very broad-brush overview of the status of AIS in northern Wisconsin with focus on 7 lakes in Vilas and Bayfield Counties with Eurasian water milfoil (EWM). Experiments with both liquid 2,4-D and granular have found that when EWM is widespread liquid treatment is most effective. Granular application is most effective when treating small stands of EWM. An encouraging result is that one lake that was treated with 2,4-D showed EWM completely disappeared for three consecutive years following treatment.
Wild Rice - Nature’s
Bounty: Roger LaBine and John Haack presenters. Attended by Grace Huth, Jon Huth, Greg Heber,
Ruth Baker, and Bob Baker
The historical, cultural, and ecological importance of wild rice was discussed. Wild rice is actually a species of aquatic grass and not really rice. Wild rice seeds fall to the lake bottom in fall and may remain dormant for up to 5 years before germinating. Once germinated the rice goes through a submerged leaf stage followed by the floating leaf stage when ribbon-like leaves lay flat on the water surface. Typically by the end of June the plants develop one or more aerial shoots that reach 2-8 ft above the water surface. This is followed by flowering in late July, and with seeds developing in September. Lipsett Lake has a sizable wild rice stand in the south bay, but a permit is needed to harvest.
Reading the “Sea Weeds”. What aquatic plants can tell us about our lake’s health: Matt and Noah Berg, presenters. Attended by Ruth Baker, Linda Beal, and Grace Huth
Matt and Noah Berg talked about the roles of aquatic plants in a lake’s ecosystem, how these plants can be used to gage human impacts on a lake, how to determine if conditions are improving or declining following management, and showed the impact of exotic species such at Eurasian water milfoil and curly leaf pondweed on the native plants in our lakes. An interesting point they shared was that lake property owners who remove all the native aquatic plants from along their shorelines often cause accelerated beach erosion on their property with in some cases 20 feet of land lost to encroachment by the lake shore.
Lake Science 101 and the State of Our Lakes: Tim Asplund and Pamela
Toshner presenters. Attended by Ruth
Baker and Jon Huth
The session was a quick primer on Lake Science, including the physical, chemical, and biological aspects that make our lakes unique. The status of Wisconsin’s lakes regionally, statewide, and nationally was discussed along with the management challenges and opportunities our lakes face, as well as how we can help to protect Wisconsin’s lake legacy.
Effective Messaging Techniques, presented by Michael Engleson of Wisconsin Lakes presenters. Attended by Linda Beal
This presentation highlighted seven points. Most important is pinpointing the exact information to be communicated and determining the desired impact of the message. Other considerations include determining the audience, the media to be used, and the format required by the media. Timing the message to maximize its effectiveness should be considered. The actual drafted message should be clear, concise, and catchy. Finally, Michael emphasized the value of using repetitions in words or phrasing, when multiple mesages will be sent. He also advocated getting to know your media contacts and making yourself accessable to your audience. If you have questions, or need help composing a message, call me, Linda Beal.
Effective Coalition
and; Collaboration, presented by Karen von Huene. Attended by Grace Huth
This was a short synopsis of a citizen advocacy
workshop. We were given the tools needed to create and run an issue –based
grassroots advocacy group. These tools
explained the “how to” for: creating an action plan, developing a strategy, setting goals, and for building
stakeholder groups.
One of the most memorable statements was “that while
building
stakeholders there must be a coalition between oppositional
groups.”
That building points of agreement and common action is
necessary to accomplish a goal. To not
include opposition will only make the goal much more difficult to achieve and
possibly not achieve at all.
How To Motivate and
Keep Volunteers Engaged, presented by Beverly Stencel. Attended by Greg Heber and Jon Huth
Volunteers are extremely important to the work of the lake
organization. The satisfaction and good feelings volunteers obtain from
contributing to the lake organization are critical to the success of the lake
organizational activities and the assurance of organizational continuance. Six steps for the development of volunteers
were presented and explained.
1) Know your volunteers
2) Have a proper job description for
each job
3) Eliminate barriers to volunteering
4) Create bonding
5)
Have proper training for each job
6) Evaluate who you have for specific jobs
A volunteer coordinator, one who makes sure the volunteers
know when & where they are needed, is a great benefit to an organization.
We certainly have some of these steps in place. Working on these tools and steps would
improve our Lake Association volunteer group.
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