DECEMBER 17, 2024 5:00PM CST Join us for our 2024 Annual Membership Meeting as we celebrate 30+ years of dedication to Minnesota’s lake and river ecosystems! This milestone event is both a celebration and a rallying call for lake associations and advocates committed to protecting our waters. Hear inspiring success stories of statewide collaboration to combat invasive… Read more »
Category: Policy and Legislative Updates
A New Approach to Policy Making – Emily Mining Information Group
By Lily Carr, Civic Leader and Program Coordinator, MLR In the midst of ever complex and contentious mining debates, the Emily Mine Information Group (EMIG) is making a case for the effectiveness of Civic Organizing as a method by which to inform and organize community members in a completely new way- not against mining, but… Read more »
Focus On Citizen Scientists – Critical Partners
Update: SAFL Phase Three Wake Study (and other AIS research on Minnetonka) Longtime MLR member, partner, champion Gabriel Jabbour is a Lake Guardian. His efforts at protecting our resources are so focused and productive that he has printed cards with Lake Guardian printed on them. He handed me one recently, saying, “If you tell people… Read more »
A Study of Wave Height, Energy, and Power from Recreational Boats on a Freshwater Lake
In 2019 MLR began receiving reports that large wakes were creating conflicts among different lake users, eroding shoreline, and creating other problems. During the pandemic lake based recreation increased dramatically as did the sale of watercraft. Industry data shows that consumers gravitated to the ends of the boat spectrum. Sales of large, powerful watercraft like… Read more »
Minnesota Lakes and Rivers 2024 Legislative Update
The 2024 session was extremely short, mid-February to mid-May. This meant that there was very little time for complex or controversial legislation to work its way through the process. MLR set a more modest legislative agenda this year, focusing on issues on which we had been able to initiate in previous years. The most important of… Read more »
MLR Pursues Long Term Strategy to Address Wake Surfing Impacts
The Problem Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates (MLR) received the first email from a member regarding the impacts of wake surfing in 2019. By the summer of 2020 more members were telling us the large, powerful wakes generated by wake surfing boats were eroding shorelines, knocking people from pontoon or fishing boats, swamping canoes, kayaks… Read more »
Significant Shift in DNR Roundtable With More Lake Advocate Voices in the Rooms
Lake Steward and Natural Shoreline Break Out Session Highlights On Friday, January 19th, more than 400 people, 75 of them DNR personnel, gathered at the DNR Roundtable to have conversations with other leaders in conservation, strengthen partnerships, and define challenges and opportunities in conservation efforts in fisheries, wildlife, and ecological and water resources in Minnesota.… Read more »
MLR’s Stop Starry & AIS Efforts to expand in 2024 & 2025
In late August of 2015 the invasive algae, Starry Stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa) was confirmed in Lake Koronis at the Highway 55 public boat access. It was the first time that this Aquatic Invasive Species was confirmed in Minnesota. Starry stonewort is a stringy algae that can grow from two to twenty-five feet deep, can overwhelm… Read more »
2024 Legislative Preview – Finish the Work We Started in 2023
The 2024 Legislative Session will be short this year, starting February 12th and ending May 20th, a little over three months. Last year the Minnesota Legislature focused on our Biennial Budget. In 2024 legislators will be more focused on policy proposals. MLR and our partners had a very productive session last year. Passing policy is… Read more »
How Grass Roots Advocates Built a Statewide Movement to Protect Lakes – A Case Study of the Keep It Clean Effort
by Robyn Dwight, Upper Red lake Association Up at Lake of the Woods, straddling the Minnesota-Canadian border, concerned local residents have spent over a decade looking for sustainable solutions to a human waste problem that occurs every winter because of leftovers of human activity. More recently, advocates from Upper Red Lake and Mille Lacs Lake… Read more »