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FISH TRAP LAKE PROPERTY

OWNERS ASSOCIATION

Welcome to our Website

The mission of the Fish Trap Lake Property Owners Association is to preserve our wildlife and water quality and promote safe recreation for the Fish Trap Lake Community. The first meeting of the association was held on August 11, 1973, nearly 40 years ago. We have a proud heritage of working with the community and local government to make Fish Trap Lake safe and fun for recreation while preserving the lake's environmental quality.

We've developed this website to provide current news and rapid updates and to hear comments and concerns from lakeshore owners.

Important Public Notice to Fish Trap Lake Property Owners - 5/7/12

Professional Lake Management has just notified us that they plan to treat Fish Trap Lake for curly-leaf pondweed on Wednesday, May 9th if weather conditions permit. Please see the link below for additional information.

Current lake updates - 5/7/12

1. Steve Backowski ( Morrison County Engineer) has set a town meeting at Scandia Valley Town Hall for May 24^th at 7:30 for purpose of discussion of the potential closing of the RR Crossing in Lincoln. Steve said that notice will be published in the local paper. Notice will also be sent to the Scandia Town Board, Fish Trap Lake Assoc., and residents within a certain radius of the crossing. We encourage all of us that can to attend this meeting.

Marilyn Sutton, Jim Sutton and Paul Baker attended the Morrison County Board meeting on 11/21 to discuss the prospect of closing the railroad crossing in Lincoln. The discussion lasted almost an hour. A representative from BNSF was also in attendance. Some of the discusion points include the following:

There are on average, 55 vehicles using this crossing daily. The BNSF representative stated that this is a very low number.
Those at the meeting agreed that the crossing could be closed with minor impact to the local residents.
BNSF would pay for the closure at no cost to the county.
A Morrison County commissioner stated that the County would prefer to keep the crossing open to use as a “trade” in the event of future development in Morrison County necessitates the need or a new crossing in the County. BNSF will not allow a new crossing unless one is closed.
BNSF, however, would likely not accept the Lincoln crossing in “trade” as it is a minor rural crossing.
All agreed that next step should be to bring this up at the next Scandia Valley Township meeting to gauge what opposition there may be if any.

Marilyn, Paul and Jim also attended the 12-13 Scandia Valley Township meeting. A representative from the Scandia Valley Fire Department expressed concern that the road closing would interfere with optimal fire protection. The board discussed the idea of a quiet zone (which the county has previously opposed) and will address the matter again in its next meeting on March 13th.

2. The DNR has notified our association that we will again be receiving a grant for treatment of curly-leaf pondweed. Although it is less than half of what we received last year, the $9870 grant is certainly appreciated and will help defray the cost increase by Professional Lake Management which was select again by our LID to treat Fish Trap Lake in 2012. The cost for treatment has increased substantially this year due to an increase in chemical and permit costs.

3. The Morrison County Board on January 10th amended Morrison County's septic ordinance as follows:

Morrison County may conduct a systematic on-site inspection program including all properties where adequate record of conformances does not exist, identifying nonconforming or illegal systems and requiring reconstruction when appropriate

For the RMB Evnironmental Laboritories, Inc 2011 Fish Trap Lake water quality report through July 2011 and for a comparison with previous years and other lakes, please follow the link at the bottom of this webpage or go to www.rmbel.info.

Water Flow Committee Report - August 12, 2011

The water flow committee met on Sunday, August 12th and discussed the thick cattail growth in Fish Trap Creek which might be slowing down the outflow of water from our lake. The committee agreed to recommend to the board chemical treatment of an area of cattails about 300 feet long and X feet wide. Before the DNR can approve treatment, property owners on land adjacent to the treatment area must approve its use. Treatment this year will result in a reduction of cattails next Spring. Several members of the committee discussed the idea of privately paying for the treatment which needs to be competed in August and requesting reimbursement from the board at the September 10th meeting. The committee also recommended using a flow meter to measure the current in order to determine if the treatment of the cattails had a significant affect on the flow rate.

The DNR has awarded our lake association a grant of $21,500 for the 2011 treatment of curly-leaf pondweed. They also approved lake-wide treatment which replaces the previous limitation of 15% of litorial acres (about 50 acres). THe DNR conducted a delineation at the end of April (the links to the results of the delineation are below). The initial delineation showed approximately 120 acres of curly-leaf pondweed. The reivsed delineation (revised due to a calculation error) shows the same location for curly-leaf pondweed beds but only a total of about 70 acres. The DNR permitted our LID to treat approximately 65 acres - all curly-leaf pondweed beds except for those near the mouth of Thoroughfare Creek due to the possibility of spreading Eurasian milfoil from Alex at the other end of the creek. Professional Lake Management completed treatment on May 24, 2011 and posted buoys at all treatment sites. Both Professional Lake Management and the DNR will conduct post-treatment studies to determine the effectiveness of the treatment.

Please also see the links below for the 2011 fisheries report and the 2011 Spring Newsletter and also the link at the very bottom of this page connecting to a page showing historic water levels on Fish Trap Lake.

2011 Delineation.doc

2011Delineation (revised)

2011 DNR Fisheries Management Lake Survey Report

Please also note that our Lake Vegatation Management Plan has been revised. The new plan can be found on the page entitled "Lake Vegatation Management Plan".

To view the delineations for 2008, please go to page entitled "Curly-leaf Pondweed Treatment Updates" and scroll to the bottom of that page. That page also contains treatment safety information. Professional Lake Management (PLM) has assured us that concentrations used are so slight that there are no risks to swimmers.

The most recent meeting of the Fish Trap Lake Property Owners Association was on April 16, 2011. The meeting minutes have been posted at the link below. Our next meeting is our board meeting on June 18, 2011 at 9:00 a.m. at the Scandia Valley Town Hall. All are invited.

The DNR completed a point intercept study in May 2009. You can see the study on the DNR website at

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/water/lakes/vegetation_reports/49013700.pdf

In 2008, the Morrison County Board voted to establish a Fish Trap Lake LID. The first meeting of the LID was on 8/30/2008. A second meeting was held on September 20th. Please go to the link below for the Lake Improvement District to see the agendas and meeting minutes. The most recent meeging was held on July 18th. Meeting minutes have been posted on this website. In 2009, the LID entered into a three year contract with PLM, the company that treated the curly-leaf pondweed in 2007 through 2009.

In 2008, the DNR completed the delineation of Fish Trap Lake and has compiled the data. Please go to the link below on Curly-leaf Pondweed Treatment Updates to view the map which shows the areas of curly-leaf pondweed on Fish Trap Lake during the last week of June, 2008, approximately one month after the lake was treated.

The decision to treat the lake was made at our general meeting in June. The decision to treat approximately 60 acres and to hire PLM was made at our FTLPOA Board meeting on March 8, 2008. we voted to spend $10,000 of our savings in addition to our $5,000 grant for the treatment of curly-leaf pondweed this spring. We have hired Professional Lake Management to treat the all acres approved by the DNR. By law, we cannot treat more than 15% of our total 404 littoral acres (60.6 acres). We currently have curly-leaf pondweed on approximately 136 acres but, in 2008, can only treat less than half of it. PLM has developed a plan to most effectively address curly-leaf pondweed on our lake. The selection by PLM of the areas on the southwest shores is based on the goal of treating the worst areas and concentrating on entire bays in the southwest and west where the prevailing winds come from. For a photo of Curly-leaf pondweed, please go to our page on Curly-leaf Pondweed Treatment Updates.

For 2008 data on water quality test results and Secchi disk readings (water samples and Secchi disk readings collected by Jim Fogelberg), please go to www.rmbel.info. 2009 data will be posted soon.