AIS—Working Together Makes a Difference (Part 1)
Two years ago, in late September 2017, the Turtle Lake Association sent a postcard and an email to every Turtle Lake property owner, explaining that zebra mussels had been found in North Star Lake. We remember that day vividly; it was a real wake-up call. Despite being located relatively remotely, Turtle Lake was just like any other lake, at risk of an infestation and our risk just went up. With that, the AIS prevention program on Turtle Lake began.
In those two years, as a lake, we’ve done a lot together to prevent AIS infestations. This is a lake that really “gets it.” We see this over and over when we talk to neighbors from all over the lake. Volunteers have stepped up faster than on any other lake we know of. Turtle Lake is recognized locally and statewide as a leader in AIS prevention because people all over the lake have pulled together to do the right thing.
Despite our great progress, the risk of infestation to the lake keeps rising from increasing fishing pressure and from newer, more troublesome types of AIS. We’ve gotten to the point that we need to do more than we can accomplish as volunteers. The Turtle Lake Association Board has agreed to fund 2 activities that will allow another big jump in our ability to prevent AIS infestations. Here we’ll talk about one. You’ll find Part 2 in the TLA Newsletter which will arrive in a couple of weeks.
The TLA Board has approved contracting with the Itasca County AIS Program to pay for additional watercraft inspection hours. We’ll write a grant proposal to the AIS Program requesting $2000; Turtle Lake will match that amount and we will get 200 additional hours of inspections.
Boats entering the lake through the public access likely present the highest risk for an AIS infestation. We would need more than 1900 inspection hours in each summer season to inspect every boat that entered the lake through the public access. However, we believe that approximately 1200 hours of watercraft inspections carefully targeted to higher traffic times would get us close to inspection of 100% of the boats entering and leaving the lake.
In 2019, Itasca County paid inspectors and Turtle Lake DNR AIS Volunteers inspected boats about 500 hours. We’re confident the 2019 volunteers will add at least 150 hours in 2020 and the additional paid inspections another 200 hours, bringing our probable 2020 total to at least 850 hours.
If we’re targeting 1200 hours of watercraft inspections to significantly reduce this risk, we could really use your help. You’ll be hearing from us again in a few weeks about how you can help by volunteering a few hours to this or several other areas where we need help.