Hello Neighbors! 2021 will be an interesting year for all of us on Pine Lake. For many years the PLPOA Board has been putting money into the Milfoil Fund for a rainy day. Unfortunately, that rainy day has come.
We believe you have all known that for the last two summers, the DNR has not granted us a permit to chemically treat the EWM that we have in the lake. For that reason, the EWM has spread like wildfire. Imagine how bad it would be right now if boats had been chopping it up for the last two summers.
DNR forced us to have a Point Survey conducted before the DNR would consider a permit. Estimates came in between two thousand and three thousand dollars to have the survey provided by a licensed vendor.
Fortunately, after board members worked tirelessly for six months to get it accomplished, the DNR and Golden Sands Resource Conservation & Development Council from Stevens Point performed a Point Survey on our lake… for FREE (August 2020). We thought this was our golden ticket to get a chemical treatment permit for summer 2021.
The short version is that the survey did not show, to DNR satisfaction, that we had enough EWM to allow us to treat chemically. They have decided that chemical treatment can only be used if the EWM is so thick you cannot drive a motorboat through it. We are not that bad yet, thank goodness.
When we questioned the DNR as to what other options were available to us, we were told; do nothing, hand pull or use DASH (Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting).
We are sure you remember our initial attempt to build our own DASH boat in order to save the Association money in the long run. When, after three years of trying to get volunteers to help finish building the boat, we gave up, sold the boat for what we paid for it and gave back the pumps and hoses that were donated to us.
Attempts to get volunteers to hand pull have also been a bust. So… our best alternative this year is to use a DASH boat service for a considerable amount of money.
We contacted Big Silver Lake because they have been using DASH boats for several years. It has worked well for them. Each property on Big Silver is assessed $300.00 per year for the service. They have 312 properties on the lake which brings in $93,600.00 per year.
For the last five years, they have spent every penny to keep the EWM in check. We are in much better shape than they are. We hope to keep it that way.
Big Silver suggested Aquatic Plant Management (APM) located in Minocqua Wisconsin. We contacted APM and had several phone conversations with them including a conference call during our March 13th Board meeting. APM’s Bid was very competitive, and the board voted unanimously to contract APM to DASH harvest as much EWM as they could possibly find this year.
The contract was signed on March 18th. The proposed operation will take about six (6) days and will run our Association $15,630.00. Fortunately, with all of the dues, generous Milfoil Fund donations and Pine Lake paraphernalia sales, we have the money. But it stretches our Milfoil Fund to the max.
We have approximately 110 properties on the lake to cover the pull this year. If we had not been saving for a rainy day, this year’s pull expense would be $142.00 per property.
The pull must take place in July when the weeds are all up and at their strongest.
For this reason, the Board is asking all of you, no matter what the lake level is, to keep the No Wake status of the lake intact until after the milfoil treatment has been accomplished. It makes no sense to chop up the milfoil and spread small pieces around the lake to re-root before we do the treatment.
If we allow any of the plants to spread and re-root before we harvest, we are totally wasting the $15,630.00 we will spend for the DASH harvest.
We have as near a perfect window to accomplish the pull and get 99% of the milfoil as we will ever have. Please be patient and allow us to get this done.