Water Lettuce on Lake Onalaska: Tuesday Evening Update

Date:  10/13/2015 10:32 PM
From: Fritz <fritz@funk.io>
To:  Participating Natural Resource Agencies and Volunteers

I still think we might succeed in stopping this release - a few spots to mop up yet and more shoreline to rule out.  Undoubtedly there are at least a few plants that got buried in the windrows of wild celery that are now piling onshore.  Lets hope they cannot survive through winter from there.

Summary of reports I received from Tuesday's cleanup excursions and findings:

7am - I drifted/poled the exposed Brice Prairie shore to Mosey Landing under excellent viewing conditions again, and found 6 plants.  The easternmost plant was again near the Z/ZB intersection.  Thorough search of Red Pines area, inside and out - no plants.

9am - Shawn Giblin and his DNR crew report:  "Eric and I checked the French Island Spillway area by walking the bank first thing this morning- no water lettuce- but the wild celery was piled quite high on the bank. I would suspect no plants under the celery but I can't rule that out. Later, we launched at Nelson Park, checked Sailboat Bay and checked around Bell Island wrapping back to the Onalaska Spillway. From there, we checked along the railroad tracks and on to the north shore to the barrier Islands - no water lettuce observed. We then went back to the site of the release and collected a little shy of one full bag between the release site and the public walk-in access. We checked quite thoroughly, but I'm sure there are some stragglers left. It would be good to recheck from the tube to at least the walk-in access again tomorrow or Thursday. On the way out, we checked the wild rice bed outside of the barrier islands and found two additional plants.

~noon - Marie French (Sailing Club, BPCA and LOPRD member) launched her kayak at Nelson Park and combed the west and north side of Bell Island.  Did not find any lettuce in that area.

5pm - Scott Cooper (LOPRD, ORA, BPCA) paddled the entire stretch inside the Brice Prairie barrier island up to the "tubes".  He reported no lettuce in the channel (presumably he means east of Fred Funk Landing), but he found about 50 plants as he proceeded up past BlackDeers, more the further up you go.

USFWS crews were busy putting out the waterful avoidance buoys today, but Kendra Niemec plans to put a couple people back at the source tomorrow about mid-morning.

I plan to pole or paddle the exposed Brice Prairie shore east to Red Pines again in the morning.

Have not heard plans from any others, but please keep up the search, especially while we have favorable conditions!  Let us know what you find. A next step to organize will be a paddling search of the French Island west shore - I found about 20 lettuce plants at the sailing club beach last Saturday.  Undoubtedly there are more.

Brice Prairie Residents:  Look on your shoreline at the water's edge, under the overhanging vegetation (usually canary grass) --unless you already have windrows of celery there.  The water lettuce gets trapped under the overhanging vegetation and is hard to spot - especially in the Brice Prairie channel.  Because of warm groundwater seepage along that edge of the Brice Prairie shore, that is the place where the water lettuce could most easily survive a harsh winter.

Thanks to everyone for your continuing efforts!

--Fritz Funk (LOPRD, BPCA, BP EMS&Rescue)