Water Lettuce on Lake Onalaska: Friday's Events Date: 10/17/2015 07:32 AM From:Fritz To: Participating Natural Resource Agencies and Volunteers Events of Friday: La Crosse Tribune published another article on the lettuce infestation, which should greatly help public awareness and detection: http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/volunteers-battle-plant-invasion-on-lake-onalaska/article_c91fffa8-a7e2-5a45-a436-8b3bbe06f9e7.html Friday's Survey/Cleanup Activities I've heard of so far: French Island: Joni Welda spent 3 hours wading the shores at Nelson Park - no sign of any lettuce. Brice Prairie Upper Channel: Marc Schultz surveyed from Blackdeer's Cut to the source at the tubes. Picked up three small plants up the Brice Prairie Channel between his dock and the white boat house. He also picked up four pieces more up in the stop sign area. Nothing in deep. Al Daus also checked from his house (8th house east of the upper boat landing) up toward the tubes and slough SE of tubes and found no plants. Brice Prairie Exposed Channel: I found only TWO plants!! Finally, numbers are coming down. Map below. Easternmost plant not so far east, even with the winds. 1 plant was up in the shore-fast windrows, but the other was out at the margin ready to set sail. I know a lot of other shoreline residents and volunteers are out there looking - thank you for your efforts! Upcoming: Waterfowl season re-opened today. There will be more boat wakes in the Brice Prairie channel which will probably dislodge a few more plants. To guard against escapes to Pool 8, it would be helpful to paddle/search just below both Lake Onalaska spillways and also the lower spillway landing culvert. Look for places that the recent winds with westerly components and local currents might have entrapped some lettuce. Also look for any nearby places with benign overwintering habitat down there (outfalls, groundwater flow, any place that would not freeze hard). Please report back if you go and what you find! Shawn Giblin repots that their Long Term Resource Monitoring Staff with be sampling in Upper Pool 8 early next week. They will be on the lookout for plants that may have moved through Lake Onalaska into Pool 8. USACE will be doing their seasonal cleaning at some point of the culvert between the upper and lower spillway landings and will keep an eye out for lettuce plants. All your efforts are appreciated! --Fritz Survey track of Brice Prairie exposed shoreline from Friday morning and locations of the two plants found: