No Milfoil Treatment for Two Lake Minnetonka Bays

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March 21, 2010

Despite having raised almost all of the money through fund raising and private donations, the Department of Natural resources has decided to not treat the Eurasian water milfoil and curly-leaf pondweed in two Lake Minnetonka bays. The DNR notified the Lake Minnetonka Association at the end of February of its decision.

St. Albans and Gideon bays were denied, but treatments for Carman, Phelps and Gray’s bays will continue as planned. The DNR sites concerns about potential damage to native water plant species as the reasoning. They will monitor both the good and bad plants over the summer of 2010 to plan out a new strategy. Each Lake Minnetonka bay is on a 5 year management plan.

Almost 97% of the $55,000 to treat St. Albans Bay was raised through pledges and donations. Greenwood donated $5000 and Excelsior allocated half of their $5000 donations for St. Albans and the other half for Gideon. Tonka Bay is also providing $5000 for Gideon toward the $79,000 expected cost of treatment.

Mayors from Excelsior, Greenwood, Shorewood and Tonka Bay have called for their state representatives to get involved and broker an agreement between the cities, Lake Minnetonka Association, DNR and Lake Minnetonka Home owners.  The DNR has committed that if native plants return or exceed pre-treatment levels, the DNR will consider a proposal for treatments to resume in 2011 for St. Albans and Gideon bays.

Many of the bays have seen an improvement since treatments began.

Residents hope that they will not see these statistics reversed by the DNRs refusal to treat the 2 bays.

I am a licensed Realtor in the State of Minnesota. This website is not a multiple listing service, but each Minnesota & Minneapolis real estate agent is a member of the Regional MLS of MN, inc., a provider of the Minnesota MLS.

Lake Minnetonka News

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