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The Center Lakes Association asks that you help get the lead out of our lakes! Please come join us at the Harmony in the Park July 7th for Lakes Appreciation Night and bring your lead sinkers and any lead fish tackle and get one free set of Loon safe tackle at the Center Lakes Association booth. Lakes Appreciation Night Wednesday July 7th, 2021, at Lions Park from 6:30 to 8:30 pm Let's keep our State bird and other wild life safe and healthy!

With the warmer days we are having, the possibility of harmful and toxic algae in our lakes is much higher. We highly recommend anyone using the lake review what the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has outlined for safely using the lakes. A great summary from the MPCA: ! Do not swallow lake water or touch foam, scum, or algal mats ! Do not let pets swim in scummy water or lick algae off their fur ! Rinse fish with fresh, clean water and throw away guts before cooking and eating ! Do not swim in areas where you cannot see your feet in knee-deep water Additional resources from the MPCA Harmful algae blooms: Water recreation advisories Example photos of harmful algae blooms in MN Blue-green algae - Summertime in Minnesota: When in doubt, best keep out! For more information on harmful algal blooms, please call 651-757-2822

The Center Lakes Association merchandise store is open again! From now until June 30th, a variety of hats and shirts are available for purchase. For any questions, please reach out to Scott Weiss at shweiss318@gmail.com Go to Store

This past week, there were multiple reports of an unexpectedly high number of dead fish washing ashore on both South and North Center Lakes. After reaching out to Leslie George our Area Fisheries Supervisor, what has been reported sounds normal for this time of year. From Leslie: Not an uncommon report over the last week or so on various lakes, with more to come given the next week’s weather forecast (HOT!) if I had to guess. These minor spring fish kills are usually due to Columnaris outbreaks – attached is a little more info on these occurrences. Fairly common this time of year when warming water temps (or other environmental stressor) adds stress to fish already stressed from spawning-related activities. We like to keep note of where this is occurring, so we appreciate the email. Please let me know if you observe significantly more dead fish in the coming weeks, or happen to see anything that might suggest something other than a seasonal fish kill (ex. a new point source of pollution coming into the lakes, etc.). As noted, please reach out to Leslie George to report a significant increase of dead of fish over the coming weeks. You can reach Leslie via email at leslie.george@state.mn.us

We've had quite a few questions about the channel between North Center and North Lindstrom Lakes. Earlier this week, the Lake Improvement District (LID) performed some additional maintenance to remove the last 100' of floating bogs near the Blue Waters entrance. They also removed some of the bogs that floated back into the channel last year. That being said, the channel is currently only suitable for kayak and smaller vessels. There have been larger boats such as pontoons and V-Bottom boats that have attempted to pass through but are getting stuck. The LID continues to explore available options for increased navigation. All the weirs affecting the water level have been closed all season. Let's hope for some additional rain to bring the water levels back up so we can all enjoy the channel like we have the last couple of years. Here's a video showing all the progress that has been made the last couple of years with the channel!

The latest edition of The Scuttlebutt from the Center Lakes Association is now available! Check it out here.

Thanks to folks from the Washington Conservation District and East Metro Water Education Program you can learn how to design and care for a raingarden at your home! Raingardens are a beautiful way to add curbside appeal to your property and protect local lakes and rivers from runoff pollution. During this webinar presenters will discuss: Benefits of raingardens and native plants Raingarden design - including where to put your garden What plants to choose for sunny and shady sites Raingarden care and maintenance Resources & funding available for raingardens and other water-friendly planting projects Presenters: Brett Stolpestad and Cameron Blake (Washington Conservation District), Angie Hong (EMWREP) Additional Resources Blue Thumb – www.bluethumb.org Plant selector tool; native plant suppliers and contractors; workshops and events; info on pollinator gardens, raingardens, shoreline plantings and turf alternatives WCD – Planting for Clean Water - www.mnwcd.org/planting-for-clean-water Slides and recordings from previous workshops Print resources Local project examples WCD – Lawn Care - www.mnwcd.org/lawn-care Guidance for eco-friendly lawn care MPCA impaired waters map - www.pca.state.mn.us/water/impaired-waters-viewer-iwav

With North Center and South Center lakes removed from the impaired waters list, Chisago SWCD, NRCS staff continue to work with landowners, community partners to advance positive water quality trends emerging throughout the 20-lake chain CHISAGO COUNTY — When the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency removed North Center and South Center lakes from the impaired waters list this spring, Chisago Soil & Water Conservation District staff celebrated a continuation — not a conclusion — of targeted watershed work. North Center and South Center were two of nine lakes in the 20-lake chain added to the impaired waters list in 2008. Removal requires meeting water quality standards for five consecutive years. In Chisago County, the accomplishment reflects hundreds of conservation practices implemented over 10-plus years, stretching from lakeshore lawns to farm fields. Landowners’ work with the SWCD and its partners has led to improving water quality trends throughout the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes. “All the other lakes where we have water quality trend data are also improving. That’s exciting. It’s not just one or two lakes,” Jerry Spetzman, Chisago Lakes Lake Improvement District (LID) administrator “A lot of the projects happening on North and South Center are also happening on the entire chain of lakes.” Phosphorus and chlorophyll-a levels are generally decreasing throughout the chain. “It was a fabulous program,” Pat Eichten said of working with the SWCD and NRCS to install erosion control projects including this grassed waterway. Photo Credit: Chisago SWCD Phosphorus feeds the algae that can turn lakes green. Chlorophyll-a indicates the presence of algae. Secchi disk readings, a measure of water clarity, are generally improving. A targeted watershed demonstration grant from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources brought five years of dedicated Clean Water Funds to the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes starting in 2015. Work accomplished through that grant reduced phosphorus by an estimated 690 pounds a year. One pound of phosphorus can create 500 pounds of algae. The SWCD has leveraged more than $1.7 million in Clean Water Funds, including the targeted watershed demonstration program grant, to gain additional dollars for conservation projects affecting the chain of lakes. It secured a Mississippi River Basin Initiative award — dedicated funding from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service that provided about $125,000 in assistance. The LID has contributed $40,000 annually. The St. Croix River Association contributed $50,000 total. Water quality work gained enthusiastic support from the cities of Lindstrom and Center City. Left to Right: Thiel, Spetzman, Mell By the time it wrapped up in 2020, the targeted watershed grant had funded projects involving 43 landowners. Leveraged local, state and federal funds can cover up to 100% of costs. In exchange, landowners agree to a 10- year contract to maintain the practice. SWCD and NRCS staff have continued the watershed-based approach. It starts by identifying pollution hotspots, and then working with willing landowners to implement conservation practices. From earthen structures that curb field erosion to rain gardens that filter runoff, conservation practices implemented throughout the chain of lakes ultimately benefit the St. Croix River downstream. “It’s like a watershed success story. It’s great for North and South Center, but it’s also great for the entire watershed,” Spetzman said. Chisago SWCD Administrator Craig Mell handles the contracts. SWCD water resources specialist Casey Thiel summarizes data collected though the LID’s water quality monitoring program, and works with urban and lakeshore property owners. SWCD resource conservationist Shane Hultman works with agricultural producers. Throughout the watershed, they’ve become recognized as a resource. We’re there to help. What we call a resource concern they call a problem. When they have to work around a gully or have a hillside that washes out, we’re there to help Shane Hultman, Chisago SWCD “We’re being seen more — and differently than the people who help farmers. Going back 10 years, that’s what the SWCD was. There wasn’t a direct connection to lake water quality,” Thiel said. The SWCD has applied the targeted approach throughout the county. Staff is assigned to designated watersheds. The cover crop Byron Dahlheimer planted in his Chisago County field was greening up by mid-April. Last fall he rented a no-till drill from the Chisago SWCD. Photo Credit: Chisago SWCD “This is the way that we do business. We use that model and it works. We prove every day that it works. From the assessments to applying for the grants to following up with monitoring to doing more assessments— that whole process. It works,” Thiel said. Mell said it can take years to get a commitment from an ag producer. “They need to see it working elsewhere. They need to hear from their farming peers that it works,” Mell said. Dedicated funding makes it easier to align projects with producers once they’re ready to proceed. Spetzman summarized the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes effort: “It’s all of us. It’s everyone who lives in the watershed, even people who don’t live on (one of the 20 lakes). … It’s all of us together.” An Immediate Fix Pat Eichten’s first experience working with NRCS and the SWCD on a conservation project “eliminated the problem instantly,” he said, and worked so well that he pursued two more projects on rented land. Targeted MRBI funding, combined with local and state dollars, reimbursed all three 100%. Together, Eichten and SWCD staff identified resource concerns. The first project — a water and sediment control basin (WASCOB) and a grassed waterway— diverted runoff from the steel roofs of a dairy barn and two pole sheds, and eliminated a 7-foot gully that split his Franconia Township field. Subsequent work installed grassed waterways and culverts. All three projects slow runoff and allow sediment and the pollutants it carries to settle out. Together, the three projects cost about $40,000. “I don’t know if we would have pursued it without the funding. Even with a 50% cost-share you would have tried to maybe plant the field differently, or implement your own grass runways,” Eichten said. “We probably wouldn’t have done it at all. It’s a great service if you can get this done without bankrupting the farmers at the same time.” The rain garden installed on a strip of Aaron Hanson’s Lindstrom yard allows sediment and the pollutants it carries to settle out before flowing to South Lindstrom Lake. Photo Credit: Aaron Hanson Eichten started farming full time after high school. He took over from his parents in 1993, and in 2003 got out of dairy and took an off-farm job as a rural mail carrier. He raises corn, soybeans and some hay on 250 to 300 acres. Eichten said he wanted to keep the land in ag production — or at least in family ownership and untouched by developers — for as long as possible. Helping farmers continue to farm, and farm successfully, is Hultman’s big-picture goal for the county. The WASCOBs are the most popular, easiest and fastestacting of the erosion control options available to farmers through the MRBI. “They work extremely well,” said Hultman, who surveys and designs projects. Eichten said he doesn’t worry about gully-washers anymore. The WASCOB has filled with water 5 feet deep and drained by the end of the day without damaging the field. “I always tell them the programs are there; it never hurts to ask,” Eichten said, describing how he told other farmers about the SWCD. I try to push it because I know it’s a great program. Pat Eichten, Chisago County farmer With MRBI dedicated funding, the possibility that landowners would receive NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding for projects within targeted watersheds was nearly certain. A WASCOB project might lead a farmer to consider other practices such as cover crops or no-till “We get the field repaired for them first,” Hultman said. “You start with the problem, the resource concern, then you move into … getting them into the soil health movement.” Cover Crop Trial Byron Dahlheimer is trying cover crops for the first time. With a rented no-till drill from Chisago SWCD, last fall he seeded a rye cover crop into 40 acres of harvested soybean fields. The 200-acre corn and soybean farm he runs with his brother and two sons lies across the road from North Center Lake. Dahlheimer previously installed two water and sediment control basins with Clean Water Fund and MRBI assistance. Chisago SWCD funding will reimburse part of his cover crop seed cost. He described how he would determine success: “First if it helps the soil, and then return on investment — if it’s going to pay off to do it. That may take a while to find out. That may take several years.” Dahlheimer said he had been thinking of trying cover crops on his lighter soils — something he’d seen work well in states farther south — when a neighbor mentioned the signup available through the Chisago SWCD. “I was looking for a way to help the soil a little bit, put some green down,” Dahlheimer said. If cover crops work for the operation, he plans to buy his own drill. This spring, he’ll plant no-till corn into the 40 acres, which he described as gently rolling. Because of our proximity to the lakes, all the land we farm drains right into the lake system. So we try to be careful what we do, or try to make it better. Byron Dahlheimer, Chisago County farmer Like Dahlheimer, many landowners start with a WASCOB. Once the initial problem is fixed and they become familiar with staff, they may consider trying something new. “The greatest asset is when you have somebody that’s really happy about a project and they tell everybody else about it,” Hultman said. White water lilies bloom in South Center Lake off the shore of Loren’s Park in Center City. The Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes surrounds three cities. Most of Lindstrom’s 3.5 square miles, for example, lie within the shoreland district. Photo Credit: Ann Wessel, BWSR Lakeshore Restoration Nancy Moe-Mergens and Mike Mergens were among the first to sign up for a lakeshore restoration project through the SWCD. They had a problem with non-native grass, and wanted to filter runoff from the North Center Lake property where they built a house 20 years ago. “Both of our lakes are runoff lakes. We don’t have a spring or river that feeds (them). Whatever is on your property — it goes into the lake,” Moe-Mergens said. “The biggest objection that people have is they want a beach for the kids, which they can have. But they can also have a partial area to catch the runoff and filter the water from the property,” Moe-Mergens said. Shoreline restorations started to catch on when the 600-some property owners on North Center and South Center lakes began to see the results, Moe-Mergens said. She’s past president of the 120-member Center Lakes Association, which is launching a stewardship campaign. Mergens is the current LID chairman. “It justifies all the work that the LID and the Chisago Soil and Water have done,” Moe-Mergens said of the delisting. And it might prompt more lakeshore residents to make shoreline changes that help to improve water quality. Over the past few years, Mergens said he hadn’t seen the once-common late-summer algae blooms. The resale value on a clear lake and protected shoreline is much higher than a lake that has a lot of algae in it. It’s a win-win. If you take good care of the lake, it will take good care of you Nancy Moe-Mergens, Center Lakes Association The lakes also take care of the chain of lakes’ communities, which lie within an hour of the Twin Cities tourists and cabin owners. “It brings revenue to the area, which helps our local businesses,” Mergens said. “It’s important to have good water quality to keep those people coming into the area.” Rain Garden Aaron Hanson spent part of his childhood on North Center Lake. He returned to the area three years ago. In one season, he established a rain garden and pollinator habitat on a 10-by-40-foot strip of his Lindstrom yard. Runoff from nearly threequarters of the city block flows to a stormwater drain there. An alley separates the site from lakeshore lots on South Lindstrom Lake. An energy program specialist with the University of Minnesota’s Institute for the Environment, Hanson knew the benefits of pollinator-friendly habitat. He wanted to plant native species. Until he walked the property with Thiel, he hadn’t considered a rain garden. “If I was left to my own devices, I would not have been able to do the rain garden part of it. I would have slowly but surely converted the grass into pollinator habitat,” Hanson said. The project was reimbursed 100% by Clean Water Funds and LID funds. “The Clean Water Funds allowed me to do all of the things all at once. Of course, it’s something I would have wanted to do, but that’s an investment in my property that would not have taken priority.” A contractor installed the 8-by-30-foot rain garden two years ago. It fills when it rains, and then slowly drains. The flower species chosen provide springthrough-fall nectar sources. “I think a lot of these environmentally friendly technologies can also be beautiful,” Hanson said, adding that inspiring others to consider planting pollinator habitat was one motivation to maintain the strip. “(The SWCD) made it really easy and fun to contribute to a healthier lake,” Hanson said. North Center Lake, seen here, and South Center Lake’s delisting from the state’s impaired waters list is the result of 10-plus years of targeted conservation work. That momentum continues with ongoing work — and dedicated funding. Photo Credit: Joleen Rein Download the original PDF of the article by BWSR

If you want to protect beautiful North & South Center Lakes, we must manage our land. Be a Lake Steward in the new CLA Lake Steward Program. By Jeff Forester, Executive Director, Minnesota lakes and Rivers Advocates North & South Center Lakes are jewels among Minnesota’s more than 11,000 lakes. Like all valuables, our lakes need to be protected. Those of us who love and live on North & South Center Lakes are leaders in protecting it. Now you can become a Center Lakes Steward. This summer Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates and Center Lake Association have launched a new Lake Steward Program, and we invite every CLA member to get involved. The best part is that it all begins with a simple 10 Question Survey. Protecting water quality means appropriately managing the land use in our watershed to reduce the amount of pollution that enters the lake, and the watershed begins at your lake shore. Not only is shoreline important for water quality, but breeding birds, fish, and pollinators all rely on a “healthy” shoreline. The question is, how do we know if our shoreline is healthy? The first step is to “score your shore”. We are inviting all North & South Center Lake property owners to complete Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates Score Your Shore Mini Assessment. The Score Your Shore Mini Assessment Survey takes only a few minutes to complete, and provides you with valuable information about your property. Once you have completed the Score Your Shore Mini Assessment, a CLA volunteer will contact you to schedule a site visit where you can talk more about how you use your shoreline, the values you want to protect (your good view of the water, panfishing off the dock, songbird habitat etc.) Those who want to take the steps to become a Lake Steward will be awarded a beautiful Lake Steward sign to let people know you value water quality, and manage your shoreline to promote that value. The sign can be displayed on your property or on the end of the dock. If you have questions, would like a Lake Steward sign, or are interested in taking a more active role in CLA Lake Stewards Program, please email Nancy Moe-Mergens at info@centerlakes.org. Lake Stewards will model best practices on their shore land properties, and they can be sources of information for property owners who are interested in making lake friendly changes. We look forward to expanding the program with seed and plant sharing, site visits, and involvement in annual shoreline assessments similar to the loon survey. No one loves North & South Center Lakes more than those of us who live and recreate here - become a Lake Steward and promote healthy shorelines, vibrant shoreline habitats and clean water.

The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources did a comprehensive evaluation of North and South Center Lake water quality in 2019. Check out the article and video the BWSR put together with their findings! ‘Our water is our diamond’ As the cumulative effect of urban and rural conservation practices improves water quality, two lakes in the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes move toward removal from the Impaired Waters List. The Chisago SWCD’s work with landowners is backed by lake improvement district matches, Clean Water Fund grants and NRCS funds. Barb Peichel, a Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources clean water specialist, looks at South Center Lake during a July 30 visit highlighting Chisago Soil & Water Conservation District projects accomplished through Clean Water Fund grants. Project partners have included the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Chisago Lakes Lake Improvement District and the St. Croix River Association CENTER CITY — On a hot summer weekday, a boisterous group of swimmers splashed near a private dock as the occasional boater crossed South Center Lake. On the opposite shore, a couple of anglers fished from Loren’s Park. There’s a good chance none of them knew South Center Lake is on course to come off the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s impaired waters list as soon as 2022. What residents and visitors do know is that water quality has improved. Whether they live there or it’s a recreational cabin or getaway, they care about the lake the same. … They’re well-used and well-loved. Casey Thiel, Chisago SWCD From 2013 through 2018, phosphorus levels in both South Center and North Center lakes consistently surpassed water-quality standards for aquatic recreation. (Phosphorus feeds the algae that can turn lakes green.) Average Secchi disk readings, which measure water clarity, hovered at the threshold. Average chlorophyll-a levels, which indicate algal growth, remained high. Left to Right: Casey Thiel, Jill Behnke, Craig Mell, John Olinger “Things have definitely gotten better, and they’re getting close to the point where we can delist specifically these two lakes,” said Lee Engel, MPCA water quality monitoring supervisor. “You can see that concentrations are trending in the right direction.” The 2018 results arrived in late January. For the first time since the listing, South Center Lake came in under the threshold for chlorophyll-a. The 2018 average reading was 8.6 micrograms per liter. The threshold is 14 micrograms per liter. South Center Lake’s 2018 average readings for all three indicators were the best they’ve been since being listed. Nine lakes in the 20-lake Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes were listed as impaired in 2008. Ten years and more than $2.2 million in water-quality improvement projects later, the Chisago Soil & Water Conservation District’s work with landowners and cities appears to be paying off. “People are seeing the lakes improve. I hear that a lot from people,” said Casey Thiel, Chisago SWCD water resource specialist. “The fishing’s better. There’s less invasive plants. There’s more water. Water levels are a big issue. And then, ‘Hey, we haven’t seen that algae bloom that we usually get,’ or ‘We only saw one of those.’ People are noticing that.” In Lindstrom, new or rebuilt city streets are made narrower when possible — a strategy that reduces storm water runoff and cuts city maintenance costs. Linden Street was made narrower where it dead-ends at South Lindstrom Lake. It’s flanked by a storm water treatment system that includes rain gardens. SWCD staff credits the cumulative effect of water quality projects large and small. Implemented over the past decade in three cities and four townships, those conservation practices include 88 rain gardens, 21 water and sediment control basins, 13 lined waterways, 10 storm drain inlet protections, nine vegetated swales, eight shoreline plantings, eight grassed waterways, seven gully stabilizations, four iron enhanced sand filters, three storm water pond retrofits, two diversions, a livestock access control, one wetland restoration, enhanced city street sweeping and a long term hay planting. “What it shows is that the actions taken have definitely had an effect on water quality. The reality is that these things don’t just change with a flip of a switch. They take some time to switch back to meeting standards,” Engel said. About $1.7 million in Clean Water Funds from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources — including a Targeted Watershed Demonstration grant that wraps up in early 2020 — has helped to pay for the projects. To date, the SWCD has leveraged $380,000 from the Chisago Lakes Lake Improvement District, $116,700 from the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Mississippi River Basin Initiative, and $50,000 from the St. Croix River Association. “The nice thing with this MRBI, we know if we get a landowner who’s interested who meets our criteria as far as assessment work and they apply they will get the federal funding, which has been huge for us to be able to provide the dollars needed to the farmers to get the projects done,” said Craig Mell, Chisago SWCD administrator. “The other really nice thing was the lake improvement district gives us the match money,” Mell said. “Landowners can come to us and then we can allocate the funds.” The Sunrise River benefits from water-quality improvements in the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes watershed. Water from the 20-lake chain drains into the Sunrise River, which eventually reaches the St. Croix River and then the Mississippi River Conservation projects gained momentum as SWCD and NRCS staff earned landowners’ trust and as word spread. “People don’t say, ‘You want me to do a what?’ They know what we’re talking about when we come to them. Whether they’re interested or not is a different story. But they don’t look at us as funny anymore,” Thiel said. Outside of the grant funded projects, Thiel said education and an evolution in accepted practices are having a cumulative effect on improved water quality, too. “People learning what should and shouldn’t be done I think is huge. And getting people to buy into the project,” Thiel said. Once they learn the difference it makes, Thiel said residents start to sweep up the grass in the street, refrain from using phosphorus fertilizer and choose more natural shoreline alternatives. BWSR awarded the Chisago SWCD two more Clean Water Fund grants related to Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes work in December. A $250,000 grant will fund additional best management practices in the chain. A $100,000 grant will fund a gully stabilization affecting Green Lake in Chisago City. The BMP work started at the top of the watershed, and is moving east to west. The next projects will be in the middle of the 36,800-acre watershed — targeting land that drains into North Center, South Center, North Lindstrom, South Lindstrom and Chisago lakes. Work accomplished through the 2015 targeted watershed grant was calculated to reduce at least 690 pounds of total phosphorus annually — 11 percent of the Total Maximum Daily Load. “One of the things that is really unique about the watershed, it’s a very large watershed. It encompasses three cities, parts of four townships, and we have very differing cities,” Casey Thiel, Chisago SWCD Thiel described the lakes’ wide-ranging appeal: “The whole chain of lakes is a huge recreation area, so we have people coming to use the lakes. Because it’s so large and so much surface area, we also have really fantastic fisheries for an almost-metro lake. So we have a lot of people coming to sportfish, for tournament fishing and recreation in general. We have a wide mixture of people who live on the lakes as well as people who have them as their cabins.” Above, from left: White water lilies bloom in South Center Lake off the shore of Loren’s Park in Center City. A boater crosses South Center Lake, part of the 20-lake chain. Where it dead ends at South Lindstrom Lake in Lindstrom, Linden Street was made narrower. Photo Credits: Ann Wessel, BWSR Fishing is the backbone of Chisago City-based Frankie’s Live Bait & Marine, which bills itself as the No. 1 Ranger boat dealer in the world. Frankie Dusenka’s grandfather started the business. He got involved at age 12, and is on the lakes every day. “Our water is our diamond,” said Frankie Dusenka, 62, on a late December afternoon as he was heading out to check on the minnows. “That’s the catalyst that makes everything thrive in this area. … To keep the diamond shining, you’ve got to take care of it. It all starts with water quality.” Erosion control structures at Loren’s Park in Center City reduce the amount of sediment that washes into South Center Lake. The structures are among conservation practices put in place over the past 10 years that are helping to improve water quality Dusenka has hosted carp tournaments meant to thin lakes’ populations of the bottom-churning invasive species. He was a little surprised when the lakes were listed as impaired, he said, and wondered how much of a role temperature and water levels played in those monitoring results. “I believe it’s the most important thing here next to the schools — lakes being first, schools being second,” Dusenka said. “Why would we want to live here? It’s nice having a lake in our backyard. It’s nice having a lake you can see every day.” In Lindstrom, a panorama of South Lindstrom Lake unfolds at the end of Linden Street. The street is intentionally narrower to reduce runoff and cut city maintenance costs. In July, bright flowers framed the storm water treatment system — rain gardens, a pretreatment area, a rock spillway and iron-enhanced sand filters. The Linden Street project was the first Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes project funded with the SWCD’s share of $1 million in Clean Water Funds available through a direct appropriation to the Anoka Conservation District. Most of Lindstrom’s 3.5 square miles lie within the shore land district. It’s a 3-mile-long peninsula; most properties are within 1,000 feet of a lake. Twenty percent are lakeshore properties. One of the city’s stated values is to protect the environment and conserve natural resources. An angler fished from shore at Loren’s Park in Center City as a pontoon boat passed by on South Center Lake. People are starting to notice water quality improvements in South Center and North Center lakes, where the cumulative effect of targeted conservation work is becoming apparent “That’s our market value, that’s our quality of life,” said Lindstrom City Administrator John Olinger. “That’s what we’ve worked on is to improve our quality of life.” The city’s comprehensive plan identified water quality as one of the most important issues. When the lakes were put on the impaired waters list, Olinger said the council made cleaning up the lakes a priority. The city put a minimum impact design ordinance in place, brought septic systems off the lake and onto the city sewer system, and focused on filtering the water before it entered the lakes. “These lakes are not river-fed and they’re not spring-fed, so they don’t get flushed. This is like a tub. Whatever we put into it stays there,” Olinger said. “(The lakes are) very susceptible to rainfall events and the cyclical nature of dry and wet periods.” Chisago Lakes LID board member Jill Behnke, 60, was born in the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes area, where she’s lived for all but 15 years. She grew up in Chisago City — “We were on the lake probably from sunup to sundown. If we weren’t in a rowboat, we were in the lake swimming.” — and now lives on South Center Lake in Center City in the house her grandparents built in 1956. “I’ve seen the lakes where this bay that goes into the bridge to Highway 8 — I could walk across in 1964. It was that dry. I have a picture of myself walking across,” Behnke said as she looked over the water from Loren’s Park. “That bay was all dried up. I’ve seen that happen twice here. I’ve also seen the lakes be over ordinary high water. So I’ve seen them flooded. As a kid growing up, I could canoe from Chisago City all the way over here to this property in Center City … without having to get out of the canoe and portage anyplace.” Behnke said the LID originally formed to operate the weir system that was built in response to flooding and designed to keep lake levels at the ordinary highwater mark. “As those things got taken care of, now we’re looking at the quality of the water and trying to improve the quality of the water. By working with soil and water conservation, we’ve been able to implement all kinds of strategic things,” Behnke said. Rain gardens and other storm water treatments accompanied road improvements. In recent years, Behnke said she hasn’t seen as much algae. “Everything we put in this lake makes a difference because it all ends up in the Sunrise River, and from the Sunrise River it ends up in the St. Croix River. So for us to be able to start seeing improvement is a great accomplishment, and it needs to be continued,” Behnke said. Behnke considered how water quality affects the communities within the watershed: “More people are saying, ‘What a lovely place to live, raise your kids, be able to get out on the lake and enjoy a good time.’ Water quality is a big thing. It not only affects the lakes but it also affects all the wells and everything else within your cities. Because any chemicals that are going into the ground are going into the water that’s being used by all of us.” About 75 percent of the projects completed to date are within the urban areas. Initial assessments focused on urban storm water. A 2014 Clean Water Fund grant plus the NRCS funding allowed the SWCD to expand its reach to agricultural producers within the watershed. Meanwhile, an extension of the Mississippi River Basin Initiative funds will allow more conservation work on cropland. “In general, we would like to see the successes in the upper reaches of the watershed just continue throughout the entire watershed. In the middle of the chain there are a couple of really high-quality water bodies. We would like to use our funding and our resources to protect those to keep them really high quality, and then ultimately protect the downstream waters,” Thiel said. Download the original PDF of the article

Tara Kelly and Cameron Blake from the Washington Conservation District and Angie Hong from EMWREP presented a virtual workshop for lakeshore and wetland-edge homeowners. See their entire recorded presentation below: Resources to help with your shoreline Minnesota DNR Lake Finder - www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind Restore Your Shore - www.dnr.state.mn.us/rys Score Your Shore - www.dnr.state.mn.us/scoreyourshore MPCA impaired waters map - www.pca.state.mn.us/water/impaired-waters-viewer-iwav Blue Thumb – www.bluethumb.org **Plant selector tool; native plant suppliers and contractors; workshops and events; info on pollinator gardens, raingardens, shoreline plantings and turf alternatives