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Freedom of Information Act Handbook

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news

TORCH BAY MILFOIL NEWSLETTER 8/29/2022

PLM  treated the equivalent of 5.75 acres on August 2, 2022. Almost all of the treatment areas were just a couple of plants so none of the treatment locations had any significant size, but the amount of treatment used was equivalent to what would have been used treating 5.75 acres.  To put that in perspective, the survey that was done in 2013 found 193 acres of milfoil on the bay. When the bay had larger milfoil beds to treat we were able to let you know the approximate locations of most of the treatment areas in advance, but now that they are just treating scattered growth and for the most part preventing larger growth areas, we are unable to do that.  Since some areas are just 1 or 2 plants, suspected plants that are found in advance may not be spotted on the treatment day and growth that was not spotted in advance may be found and treated on the treatment day.  In addition PLM hand pulled some individual milfoil growth rather than treating.

As of now PLM does not have a date planned for a September treatment, but if they make a trip north, they will include us and you will be notified as soon as possible.  Since treatment locations will no longer be known, we all just need to assume that our area may be treated.  Since I do not know in advance if my lakefront will be treated, I turn off the timer on my watering pump until I find out if I have a treatment notice near my lakefront.  Also, since there are different restrictions for the various possible treatments, l keep the pump turned off until I check the lakeshore notice to see what was used and what, if any, the watering restrictions are for that product.  Some have no watering restrictions, some are ok for lawns but not for flowers, and some should not be used for either with watering restrictions of 1 to 3 days depending on the product.  Since the areas treated are so small the watering restrictions may not be needed, but it is probably best to follow them as a precaution because for any of us that have a treatment within 100′ of our property we won’t know how large an area was treated.

Although these notices are posted on the Torch Lake Township web page, unless property owners check the web page daily for notices they would not know that there was an upcoming treatment.  Those property owners that provide their email addresses to dbwaino1@gmail.com  will receive the notices rather than needing to check the web page

Hopefully that covers everything so if there is another treatment day in September you will only need a notice announcing the possible days. ENJOY THE LAKE