In October 2024, we hosted a milestone celebration for our Lake Steward program, marking five years of exceptional contributions from dedicated Lake Stewards across Minnesota. If you missed the live session, now is your chance to catch up on the impactful work being done to protect our precious lakes and learn how you can play… Read more »
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 »
By Jeff Forester, Executive Director of Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Lake and river associations and their members are the unsung heroes of water resource protection in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Lake association volunteers statewide spend over 1.2 million hours working at boat ramps as Aquatic Invasive Species, AIS ambassadors and inspectors, monitoring water quality,… Read more »
by Tom Hubbnard, President, Big Pine Lake Property Owners Association After several years of working with Jeff Forester at MLR, and seeing the amazing work his group has undertaken, the Big Pine Lake Property Owners Association (BPLPOA) board decided to modestly increase their annual contribution level and buy a membership for 100 of our members.… Read more »
Lake advocates working with resorts to prevent starry stonewort spread. An important aspect of dealing with aquatic invasive species is monitoring their prevalence or absence in as many lakes and streams as possible. In the summer of 2022 two volunteers and the Cass County AIS technician took on that task: sampling nearly 40 resort harbors… Read more »
by John James, former Commissioner of MN Department of Revenue A concern has arisen about whether joining and contributing to Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates would put a lake association which is a tax exempt charitable organization under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) at risk of losing its tax exemption because MLR engages in lobbying.… Read more »
By Michael Blehert, Big Marine Lake
As we move through the 3rd summer of the Lake Stewardship program we want to acknowledge the work that has been done and celebrate the progress that has been made. We now have a total of 23 Lake Associations that have adopted the program through MLR, with two more joining just this week. Each Lake… Read more »
Early Detection of Aquatic Invasive Species Provides Profound Results and Good Return on Investment Washburn Lake Eradicates Eurasian Watermilfoil (mostly) In about 2007, I received a call from Ted Johnson, the President of the Lake Washburn Association, LWA about Aquatic Invasive Species. Ted was concerned that Lake Washburn was susceptible to AIS following the construction… Read more »
Building Civic Capacity: How Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates Are Mobilizing Lake Associations for Public Policy and Environmental Action”MLR, Key Lake Association Leaders and Political Allies working to build “civic infrastructure” to protect our lakes and rivers. During the 2022 election cycle, for the first time, Minnesota Lakes and Rivers applied the Civic Organizing framework… Read more »