Elk-Skegemog Lakes Association Newsletter-January, 2012
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Elk-Skegemog Lakes Association Newsletter-January, 2012 wells are now being drilled into INSIDE THIS ISSUE: much deeper shale formations with a substantially greater risk of ad- President’s Message 1-2 verse impacts to the environment. Fish Shelters 2 Coalition activities have already resulted in strengthening certain Rapid River Update 3-4 regulations. Thank you to those ESLA Membership 3 who contacted Michigan legisla- Road End Legislation 4 tors at the behest of the coalition. Julie Courtrade 4 ESLA has made significant im- 1980’s Lake Trout 5 Bob Kingon provements to its website, President’s Message www.elk-skegemog.org. Please Lake Monitoring Update 6 visit the website and view the win- ESLA Officers 7 ning entries to ESLA’s first annual 2012 Dues Renewal 8 Dear fellow Riparian, photo contest. The best of the na- I hope you all had a wonderful holi- ture photos were used in the ESLA to reduce response times. day and that your new year is off to 2012 calendar. See page 8 for 24/7 coverage is now in place. great start. 2011 was a very produc- more details. tive year for ESLA as we took on Discussed Aarwood many new projects and issues, many ESLA also weighed in on a num- Bridge designs with the con- which benefitted members directly. ber of issues that came to our at- tract engineer and wrote a We can all now visit the Village of tention, often by alert members: letter to MDEQ requesting Elk Rapids by boat and know we We wrote a letter to the Cher- improvements for handling can find a slip. ESLA contributed ryland Electric Cooperative in an water run-off from the paved $5,000 to the Village for the instal- attempt to dissuade them from ap- surfaces. lation of our new courtesy docks. plying herbicides adjacent to sur- Met with the Elk Rapids Because of concerns about the in- face waters and wetlands. Fol- Village Manager and wrote a creasing sediment in Rapid River lowed-up with letters to the editors letter requesting that pervious and its potential impact on the Torch of 3 newspapers alerting consum- surfaces be used for the con- Bayou, Torch River and Lake Skeg- ers to an opt-out phone number struction of proposed parking emog, ESLA began a project on the that Cherryland had not publicized. areas that are adjacent to wet- Rapid River. We are conducting a Appeared before the White- lands that drain directly into variety of activities to identify water Township Board in opposi- Elk River. sources of sediment and potential tion to placing a water ski slalom remediation. An update is provided Requested that the Elk course adjacent to the Battle Creek Rapids Golf Club conduct on page 3. Natural Area. Followed-up with a sampling of surface and Early in 2011, ESLA joined a coali- letter to MDNR stressing potential ground waters for an herbi- tion led by the Tip of the Mitt Wa- impact on nesting loons. cide that was applied by the tershed Council (TOM) that seeks to Club in the spring and has improve the regulation of We wrote a letter to Elk Rap- ids Township in support of ex- since been recalled by the “fracking”. While this process for EPA. extracting natural gas from shale has panding onsite coverage for emer- been used in our area for some time, gency fire and ambulance services ESLA J AN. 2102 N EWSLETTER P AGE 2 President’s Message Cont. Fish Shelter Update We have not yet prevailed on all of these issues, With review by the DNR and DEQ, fifteen shelter but our positions have been conveyed strongly and locations, based upon a 1979 map used to locate past clearly. We of course conducted our weekly water enhancements, have been approved for Elk Lake. quality monitoring of Elk Lake and Lake Skege- ESLA has formed a committee of fishermen who have mog throughout the summer. See Thom Yocum’s extensive knowledge about the Elk Lake fishery and report on page 6. And we maintained vigilance they have identified the 15 most desirable locations. over the MDEQ and Adam Jankowski is their monitoring of the chairman of the Burnett Foods permit Committee and to dispose of cherry members are Lou processing by- Sanford, Ken products on land sur- Krentz, Lee Welch faces adjacent to Elk and Rick McCaghy. Lake. We selected 15 po- In 2011, ESLA tential sites . strengthened our rela- The sites are in tionships with our Elk front of road ends at River Watershed part- Bussa, Easley, ners. Under an um- Ringler and brella agreement ad- Hoopfer roads, the ministered by the DNR boat launch Grand Traverse Bay off East Elk Lake Watershed Center Rd and in front of (TWC), we shared Shippey Lane in resources and consultants with the Three Lakes Milton Township. In Whitewater Township we se- Association (TLA) (Bellaire, Clam and Torch) as lected sites in front of road ends at Skegemog Point, they performed work on Grass River that was simi- Townline, Carns, Gay and Angell roads and also in lar to our work on Rapid River. Another collabora- front of the Whitewater Township Park and off Skeg- tive project is now being launched to place fish emog Point near Drake road. In Elk Rapids Township shelters in our lakes to increase fish habitat. See we selected a site North of Townline Rd., a site off picture on this page. With TOM, TWC, TLA and Clearwater Point and a site in Spencer Bay. others we hosted a meeting at Camp Hayo-Went- Ha in November for township and county officials Adam appeared before the Milton Township Board in from throughout the Elk River Watershed. The November and the Whitewater Township Board in meeting was very successful and established con- December to request use of their riparian bottomland nections that should benefit our moving ahead to- by virtue of several road ends and parkland. The gether with water quality initiatives. Boards graciously approved motions allowing our project. Enclosed with this newsletter is the annual ESLA dues envelope. Our all-volunteer organization Letters are currently being sent to riparians adjacent to needs your support. We are much more effective the sites for their approval as required by MDNR and when the preponderance of our riparians are ESLA MDEQ. Pending approval by affected riparians we members. are on course to file our application by March 1, 2012 as planned. Then the hard work will begin locating And while our bank accounts are healthy, we know supplies, construction and placement of the structures. there is the looming threat of Eurasian Water Mil- foil that will require substantial resources to ad- Anyone wanting additional information or willing to dress successfully. volunteer should contact Adam Jankowski at [email protected] ESLA J AN. 2012 N EWSLETTER P AGE 3 Rapid River Update —West of Freedom Park – Good —East of Freedom Park – Fair/Poor —East of Kellogg Bridge – Fair The environmental problem being addressed by this —East of Underhill Road – Poor ongoing project is the amount of sand and sediment —Seven Bridges – Good accumulating in Rapid River, particularly just east of Aarwood Bridge and west to where the River —Wood Road west of Rugg Pond – Fair joins Torch River. This section of Rapid River has —Wood Road northeast of Rugg Pond – Poor become noticeably wider, shallower, and warmer —Birch Street northeast of Rugg Pond – Poor than it was twenty years ago. Aerial photos also show heavy deposition of sediment in Rugg Pond ESLA volunteers walked the length of Rapid River where the east branch of the River and Little Rapid from Rugg Pond to Torch River. The length of this River each flow into the Pond. Sedimentation is one stretch by Valley Road is 8.1 miles, but walking the of highest priority threats to lakes and streams in meandering River is probably twice that length or our EPA & DEQ-approved Watershed Protection more. Our volunteers were also fishermen/women Plan. Consequently this project is being conducted who enjoyed their sport at the same time as conduct- in collaboration with The Traverse Bay Watershed ing our research. Other than road crossings, only Center and Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council. A two erosion sites were identified as caused by hu- parallel project to investigate sedimentation is being man intervention, both in the 7 Bridges area. Vege- conducted by the Three Lakes Association on Grass tation on the banks was very heavy throughout this River using similar methodologies and expert guid- stretch of the River. We will walk the length of the ance. River east of Rugg Pond and the length of the Little The following short-term goals for this project were Rapid River in 2012. accomplished in 2011: There are 16 road crossings; 7 west of Rugg Pond, 4 east of Rugg Pond and 5 on the Little Rapid River. Conduct semiannual macroinvertebrate collec- Data was systematically collected at all crossings tions at an increasing number of sites. east of Rugg Pond except at Aarwood Bridge, which Walk the river and identify major erosion sites. had been scheduled for replacement. Serious ero- Evaluate Road Crossings. sion was found at each of these 6 road crossings ex- Establish multiple ongoing data collection sites. cept at Rapid City Road/Freedom Park. Two of the road crossings each have two culverts both of which In 2011 we had over 20 volunteers (6 teams) that have multiple erosion sites. While not all of the oth- conducted macroinvertebrate collection and identifi- er road crossings have been evaluated, the Wood cation in June and October.