One Step Closer

“In the Army you never volunteer for anything except certain death.” Or "No good deed goes unpunished." Now that we have our DNR "Permit to Destroy Aquatic Vegetation" approved, the DNR has come up with a long list of hoops for us to jump through.

First, to warn all of you who swim in, drink water from, use the lake's water for "domestic purposes," fish in, irrigate with, and water your livestock from Savage Lake, we have to post a bright orange notice on your property to keep you from doing those things in our lily-covered, mosquito and leech infested, nearly suffocated by invasive plants lake. Pretty freakin' hilarious. The form looks like this (except for being bright orange) and it will need to be posted everywhere a DNR inspector might look.



Second, 5 of the 12 applications for lake access were denied because the DNR guy stood in someone's backyard and looked for evidence that lake shore owners were using the lake recreationally. If you didn't have a boat in plain sight or you hadn't plowed your way through the weeds and lilies into the lake, leaving an obvious path of destruction, the DNR guy decided you weren't dedicated enough to enjoy our lake. If you really want access to the lake, you'll need to call Sean Sisler, the DNR's "Aquatic Plant Management Specialist" and plead with him to reconsider his decision. The stories I've heard of conversations with these DNR bureaucrats make me want to move to Montana and vote for the entire Libertarian party ticket.

Finally, Mr. Sisler has required us to do the spraying at a time convenient to another DNR bureaucrat, Steve Hanson, because he's convinced we're not as competent as one of the DNR's approved contractors and "the label is the law and the chemicals must be applied according to the label instructions." Having worked on several projects with Minnesota state and St. Paul city-approved contractors and the bureaucrats who mismanage them, I have to feel insulted.

The DNR has been a constant source of misinformation and obstruction regarding the damage they have done to our lake in the last decade and any hope of restoring Savage Lake to reasonable condition. I'm sure they will continue to provide this sort of nitpicking as we try to follow their constantly moving targets.

On the other hand our city manager, Joel Hanson, has really gone out of his way to help with this. He picked up and delivered the DNR forms and the chemicals today and provided us with a lot of useful information for using Dow's Rodeo herbicide. He is wrestling with the DNR over the denied access permits and has worked hard in our interests. If we get this done without more interference from the DNR, we should have a block party and make Joel a guest of honor.

The Permit is Here

Joel received the approved "Permit to Destroy Aquatic Vegetation" from the DNR on Tuesday, the 10th. Mostly, our application was approved as submitted.

However, several lake shore homeowners will not be getting their channels to the cleared area because the DNR deemed those properties has having "NO REC USE." I don't know what that means, but I'll get more information from Joel this week and I'll let you know what I find out.

I think the end result is that those 15' channels to the open area will only be cleared for 7 of the 12 property owners who applied for relief from the lily infestation.

I have a copy of the official DNR form, in PDF format, and if you would like a copy please email me through this blog or directly to my home email: twday60@comcast.net. A copy of the list of lake shore owners' and the result of their application is at right.

In City Council Notes

We're not even close to the forefront of our council's attention, but this is what has been said about our lake in the most recent meetings:

JULY 28, 2010: Nothing

JULY 14, 2010: Mayor Blesener announced that the current level of Savage Lake is very close to its normal levels. It is currently 1 to 1 ½ inches below the lake outlet.

JUNE 21, 2010: Nothing

JUNE 9, 2010: Nothing

So Tired of Waiting

Approximately one month after submitting the application to the DNR and we're still waiting for their response. Since that slow-moving, dysfunctional bureaucracy has no actual function, except to burn taxpayers' money, we have no leverage on them. The DNR sat by and watched our lake turn into a mosquito breeding swamp and did everything it could to restrict any actions that might have saved Savage Lake.

Now that the city and lakeshore residents are trying to take that responsibility into their own hands, the DNR is doing what it does best: nothing. With an annual budget of "$835.1 million" you'd think they might be interesting in accomplishing something with that giant outlay. You'd be wrong. In one of his rare moves that I agree with, Pawlenty "unallotted $2.950 million for the biennium"2010-2011 from the DNR's budget. I'd recommend unalotting a whole lot more until the bureaucrats in the DNR realize that they have to earn taxpayers' money. Currently, they obviously feel they deserve that outlay simply because past DNR employees actually worked for a living.

Yeah, I'm disgusted. I was disgusted by the babble I've heard from DNR representatives at every Savage Lake meeting since 2004 and I'm even more disgusted with that collection of inert bureaucrats today. If any state representative or administrator wants my vote, all they have to do is promise to de-fund the DNR and I'm on their side.

Lily Eradication

The plan to clear a good bit of our lake with herbicide is in place and the city is ready to pay for permits and the necessary materials. Once the permits are approved, John Bibeau and I are going to apply the herbicide by canoe. The city has sent a letter, with application forms included, to all of the west side lake shore owners, which must be completed and returned to the city by July 12, if you want to have your property's water access joined to the central lake area. The central areas will be cleared regardless of how many lakeshore owners request boating and recreational access.

Filling out the blanks in the form may be slightly tricky, if you don't know the length of your shoreline or the distance from your property to the proposed cleared central area or the 10' channel that will be cleared around the island. I talked to Joel Hansen about the values needed in the form and he said the DNR isn't looking for precise numbers, particularly for the distance from your property to the cleared central areas, but he provided a great resource for getting approximate numbers: the Ramsey County GIS Users Group and the mapping resource available at that site (http://maps.metro-inet.us/RamseyCoGIS/CXviewer.htm#). Give the form your best estimate and get it in on time.

Even if you know the information requested in this form, I recommend you bookmark these sites for future reference.

Plants and Alge

In the June/July 2010 issue of the city's Newsletter & Recreational Guide, Le Petit Canadien, I saw that the city is concerned with the water quality in Round Lake. Due to the political clout of the groups in that area, the city has "constructed storm water ponds to treat water before it enters Round Lake" and other water management improvements. Unlike our neglected lake, the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (RWMWD) is carefully monitoring that lake water and attempting to control the lake's problems.

Our lake, especially the west side, is suffering total neglect from both the city and the Watershed District. Employees from the RWMWD occasionally enter Savage Lake from our property and take samples of something, but those results are not published or provided to residents. I admit that I'm unlikely to be impressed by the analysis of any agency incapable of measuring water levels with basic tools available to the average carpenter, but I'd appreciate knowing what they think they have found; even if I doubt the basis and capacity for their conclusions. We aren't even listed as a monitored resource on their website, although Round Lake is and it is substantially less of a lake than the combined Savage Lake areas.

The east side of Savage Lake is considerably less damaged, since it isn't part of the freeway drainage system. However, lilies are starting to appear and the water quality is less than ideal. Other than water depth, I'm not sure what is protecting east Savage Lake from the worst of the plant invasions. Whatever it is, I wish we had some of it.

On a positive note, the starting spring water levels did some nice things for animal life. Painted turtles made a nice comeback in the lake. On one canoe outing, my grandkids and I spotted almost 50 turtles sunning themselves on logs around the shoreline. We also saw some large snapping turtles, one was approximately 20" from nose to tail and came up, twice, to check out my canoe paddle to see if it was edible. The lake was host to two pairs of common loons in early April, but they kept moving after a couple of days in our lake. For one evening, we hosted an off-course white pelican. Two pairs of geese had chicks about the time the temperate dropped and none survived. We lost a few mallard chicks from early hatching's at the same time. Currently, there are about a dozen wood duck chicks and a half-dozen mallard chicks trying to avoid the snappers. If you've ever seen a baby duck vanish from the group when a snapper pulls it under, you know what kind of challenge those parents are experiencing. We also have had a few hawks, herons, egrets, turkeys, lots of redwing blackbirds, cardinals, orioles, sparrows, swallows, and the usual winged culprits. A lot of our lakeshore neighbors have made their backyards into safe habitat for these birds and the animals are taking advantage of their hospitality.

Earlier this spring, with above previous spring water levels in our lake, it looked like we might avoid the previous overwhelming infestations of lilies and other invasive plants. However, that cursed east side drain effectively and rapidly lowered the water levels and the lilies are about to take over the lake, again. Our water levels have dropped 4" last week and we've lost about 9" of water level since the end of the early April rains. At the peak, the water levels were still 5" short of historic levels (based on shoreline measurements from our beach) at the peak point, so we are currently 14" low and dropping. The drain is currently out of the loop, since the east side water level is about 4" below the overspill barrier.

Last year, the City Manager claimed he was polling lake residents for the permit to spray herbicides on the lilies. However, the two residents who volunteered (the previous year) to do the spraying were not asked to either give permission or to help with the polling of property owners, so I suspect we are so far off of the city's radar that we might as well be in Wisconsin.

The freeway is still draining into the west side of the lake, through the slope and drainage design of the freeway just south of the edge of the lake. Boat docks on the southeast side of the west lake have been pushed up and damaged by the sediment and that will only get worse without storm water sediment ponds similar to the ones constructed to protect Round Lake. Without some sort of organized resident action, I think it is safe to say this lake is doomed to become a mosquito-breeding swamp. This spring has been worse than usual, mosquito-wise, and I expect it will go downhill from here.

Our property values were significantly lowered due to the current economic depression (at least ours were) and it only makes sense that the destruction of the lake and the harmful and illegal noise levels our backyards are subjected to from the freeway "improvements" would lower them further. As beautiful and rare as the homes and backyards facing Savage Lake are, anyone with a lick of sense would avoid purchasing these properties for those critical property valuation reasons. I expect to see property values fall a lot further before this is over. The only rational time to show a home on Savage Lake is after midnight when the freeway traffic noise is moderate and buyers can't see the lake clearly.

Last year, I distributed fliers to every house on the lake, informing residents of this website and the opportunity for lakeshore owners to form a property association to protect and promote our lake. I didn't pick up a single subscriber to the Savage Lake, Little Canada, Minnesota website and we totally went off of the City Council's radar for the entire year of 2009. If you are a Savage Lake resident and you have any insights on how we might reclaim this once-beautiful neighborhood resource, we'd appreciate your opinions.

Another Season, Another Year

Spring is, apparently, on the way. The ice is melting, snow is vanishing, I can even see a little grass in the backyard. We have our hopes up for this spring. With all the ice and snow, we might have enough water in the lake to make life difficult for the lilies and other invaders. In the right kind of world, we might even have some hope of a little fauna in the lake; fish, even.

Last year, turtles made a little bit of a comeback and we were serenaded all year by frogs. It has been a few years since frogs were as prominent in Savage Lake. It has been at least three years since Painted Turtles were in the lake in any quantities. Even snappers have been pretty rare for the last two years, something the ducks and geese don't mind. Five years ago, I took pictures of turtles on practically every dead tree branch in or near the lake. More recently, we have rarely spotted any sign of terrapin life in the lake. I'm hoping for a difference this year.

For the last couple of years, the great excuse for the terrible condition of Savage Lake has been "drought." At least we won't start with that excuse this year.