Welcome to the blog of the Cedar Island Lake Homeowners Association (CILHA).



The purpose of this blog is to share information of interest to CILHA members and to promote communication among members. Please feel free to share your comments and questions by posting messages here. If you are interested in having pictures or special information posted to the blog, please contact the "blog-meister" at cedarislandlakehomeowners@yahoo.com and write Blog in the subject line. Be sure to attach photos to be posted to the e-mail.



A WARM WELCOME to our newest neighbors on the lake
Brodie and Jessica Pederson


Riley Haynes

Riley Haynes
Celebrating the first snowfall - Nov 13, 2010
CILHA FALL MEETING

Tues., Nov 16th - 7:00pm

Maple Grove Community Center

Please have someone from your household in attendance.

Thank you,
Your CILHA Board

4/17/2010

UPDATE from Jeff McFarlane, President

The following was published in the April CILHA newsletter.

Well, here it is, spring again. Outdoor baseball, no snow, green lawns and temperatures about three weeks ahead of what they normally should be. Only one thing could be better; a bunch of dead bullheads washing up on shore to show that our Lake Management cleanup project was under way.

As you can see, that did not happen and I need to tell you why. Last fall it appeared that everything was in place and that we were going forward on our plan to remove the bullheads and shiners by applying rotenone. Pat Olek had been in contact with the proper official at the DNR to get all the information needed and arrange for our permit. Pat also had a contractor on board who was going to get the permit and apply the chemical. Pat had been assured by the DNR official that there was no really hard and fast rule as to what the percentage of signatures of the lake homeowners was needed for the project to go forward but the figure of 85% mentioned. Then things began to happen. The DNR contact became nonresponsive to Pat’s phone calls and emails and also would not respond to the contractor. When there was a response, it was to inform that we needed a much higher percentage of signatures, which is why several of us were out knocking on your doors in the evening hours last fall. We were under a deadline because we had to get the application done before first ice. Again, Pat got no real response and no permit was issued and the lake froze.

Throughout the winter, Pat kept calling the DNR and got nothing in return. He finally contacted the Governor’s office to complain and to see if they could get the DNR to respond. After about many attempts they finally did.

It appears that it is very unusual for the DNR to issue a permit of this type to a private organization. Most all of the fish removal by rotenone has been done by the DNR itself, when they deemed it necessary and applied by themselves. For this reason the contact that Pat was dealing with had almost no expertise or knowledge as to what actually was required and thus when it got too much for him, he stopped communicating and hoped we would go away.

Pat Olek doesn’t go away very well. I know, because I told him too a couple of times and it doesn’t work. Pat got hold of the supervisor at the DNR and finally scheduled a meeting so that we could find out the correct information about our project and our permit.

We met with Dave McCormick, who is a supervisor, and seemed to know a whole lot about what we needed and he had done his homework. He presented us with a plat map that showed Cedar Island Lake and the ponds and indicated where owners had signed off and where they hadn’t. The first thing he told us was to correct the information given to Pat by the other DNR official. He said that Minnesota State Law defines the requirements for the percentage of riparian land owners needed to apply rotenone to a lake. That percentage is 100% ! That not only means that we would need all of the Cedar Island Lake homeowners to agree, but if we were to do the adjacent ponds, as we had originally thought was necessary, that we would need all those signatures as well. It would appear that this becomes a pretty large roadblock because when I was out last Fall getting signatures, I found a couple of CIL homeowners who wanted nothing to do with CILHA no matter what the cause; and, one homeowner who was convinced that the spraying for curly leaf had caused all his problems with Water Liliesand was not interested in helping us screw up anything else.

Originally, as you remember, our project was to remove the bullheads and shiners in the lake and then stock predatory game fish and put in an aeration system to keep them free from winterkill. Well now, based on whether we can convince all to come on board, we might have to fall back on a secondary plan to purchase enough predatory game fish to have maximum impact on the bullhead population in lieu of poison and removal. Of course, aeration would be a big part of this too and hopefully the results might come out to be the same but over a significantly longer period of time.

Pat was right there to ask the DNR to help us out and the question was asked whether they knew that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency had mandated that Cedar Island be cleaned up. McCormick stated that many lakes have degraded to the point of being endangered and at this point the DNR has no money or staff to take on these projects. In CIL’s case, they couldn’t help us anyway as we only meet one of their three criteria to becoming involved even if they had the money. Since we have no public access there would be no incentive for the rest of the taxpayers to spend money on something that would not be of benefit to them. Even a public access would not meet the other two criteria and I’m sure we do want to go there because of milfoil, loss of control, mandated trailer parking, etc.

McCormick was very helpful in answering other questions in areas where he does have experience such as the best types of aeration, kinds of predator fish to stock, chances of bullheads returning even after rotenone and what might be the result of not doing the ponds.

We know a lot more than we did and this time we’re pretty sure that what we think we know is correct. We are still our original course to get all to agree and apply the rotenone. Failing that we will modify our approach to one that fits the science, has the best chance of success and is affordable. So far nobody has been able to say for sure what will work and best educated guesses are the order of the day. Oh, and did I mention that we have to work with government? Nuff said.

Hope to see you all at the meeting on the 28th.