The Dunn County News Article "Clean and safe by 2018"

Below is the article that was published in the Dunn County News. You can read the article online also at Clean and safe by 2018.

Clean and safe by 2018

By AARON OLSON
aaron.olson@lee.net
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 7:08 AM CST

The Tainter Menomin Lake Improvement Association (TMLIA) will welcome two Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials to the Tainter Town Hall on Tuesday, March 10, at 7 p.m., in the first event of a guest speaker series.

DNR Basin Supervisor Paul Laliberte and DNR Program and Planning Analyst Buzz Sorge will speak about “20 years of lessons learned from studying the Red Cedar River System,” according to a press release. In the process of exemplifying “things that did and did not work,” they will also speak about the “strategic plan for lake management,”

TMLIA approved a strategic plan at its Feb. 10 meeting in which the presentation is slated to discuss when it attempts “to identify a path and a role within the larger effort to improve the water quality” of the basin.

The plan sets the goal of the waters being “clean and safe” by 2018 by World Health Organization standards. To get to that level, there is a proposed reduction of phosphorus levels by 45 percent.

Direct action proposed in the strategy includes creating buffer zones and gardens by standing water and conducting research on new ways to reduce pollutants, such as eliminate phosphorus in lawn fertilizers. To view the five-page plan online, go to tmlia.org.

Public involvement

One key to successful planning is providing educational information to the community, such as the upcoming presentation. Strategic plan committee chair Dick Lamers remarked, “To be successful, we’ll need the entire community of people living in the Red Cedar Basin engaged and contributing to meet our goals.”

Current TMLIA President Robyn Morin said that the public “has to get involved,” for any success to be seen. “One or two people are not going to improve the lake,” she added, describing it as “a precious resource.”

According to Morin, the perception that the lake is lost is “completely wrong.” The DNR told the TMLIA that the quality of the basin can be improved in two years if the community gets involved.

TMLIA Secretary Glenn Steinbach “respectfully invites farmers, developers, and shore owners, other lake associations and conservation groups” to attend the March 10 meeting.

In an e-mail, he wrote, “The goal is not to attend the meeting with the intent on pointing fingers and making accusations. The goal is to bring various stakeholders together in the common cause of improving water quality issues.”