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Lakeside residents heard a presentation from Dan Loveland about how invasive species could affect Lake Kampeska and how the state government has addressed the issue as part of the Lake Kampeska Water Project District’s annual meeting on Thursday, April 23, held at The Prop.
The general consensus was that South Dakota isn’t doing nearly enough.
LKWPD board member and Lake Kampeska resident Mark Roby said the information and help received from the state regarding the invasive species has been “woefully lacking,” while board Vice President Brad Johnson said, “(We’ve had) better guidance out of Minnesota than South Dakota.”
Loveland, a member of the South Dakota Lakes & Streams Association, focused mostly on prevention at the meeting, while the crowd seemed to be more interested in removing two invasive species currently inhabiting Lake Kampeska. Those are zebra mussels and curly leaf pondweed, which are causing massive issues in Lake Kampeska, according to some of the residents present.
“The unfortunate answer to zebra mussels is, once you’ve found them … you live with them,” Loveland said.
That isn’t to say Kampeska and other lakes, such as Pickerel Lake, are without hope. Loveland, a past president of Pickerel Lake’s water district, has lived on Pickerel for 50 years and has watched as invasive species such as zebra mussels work their way into the waters. He came to the meeting with a few items of information that could help Lake Kampeska.
“The reason we asked Dan to come and speak was because Pickerel Lake picked up zebra mussels about the same time as Lake Kampeska,” said Roby. “(What they’re doing) is something we can learn from.”
Loveland spoke about the beginning of the zebra mussel infestation for both lakes.
“(In) 2020 we had four Northeast South Dakota lakes confirmed (to have) zebra mussels,” he said. “Pickerel Lake was July 10, 2020. It’s one of those days I’d like to forget. Lake Kampeska was also one of those lakes.”
He said the infestation scared a lot of people and raised alarms as to how the State of South Dakota was reacting or failing to react.
That was the impetus for the re-formation of the South Dakota Lakes & Streams Association, which he said was until then lying dormant for about 20 years.
“We just felt we needed to come together as lakes in South Dakota to work as one voice to speak up for the lakes and advocate for more effort to prevent further spread of the zebra mussels and other aquatic invasive species across South Dakota,” Loveland said.
The South Dakota Lakes & Streams Association does more than focus on aquatic invasive species, he said, but they have been so important, the group’s focus has been on that.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time and effort going in and really rooting out what the true things are about zebra mussels,” he said.
He spent some time myth busting before he dived into what the future holds for the lakes in Northeast South Dakota.
One myth is that zebra mussels make your lake clearer and that means the lake is actually made better. He said while it’s true lakes become clearer, pollution doesn’t go away. In fact, clearer lakes make way for more nuisance vegetation like curly leaf pondweed, another invasive species.
The South Dakota Lakes & Streams Association organization is organizing an economic impact study, something that has never been done regarding zebra mussels. He said that study has been completed, and the final report is being written now and will be published shortly.
Loveland said there is some research coming out of the University of Minnesota that could see some mitigation of the mussels, but the work needs to continue.
“(It’s) a long ways away, but it’s still promising.”
Loveland also talked about what lakeside residents can expect from curly leaf pondweed.
“Nuisance vegetation removal has been a hot topic for us now,” he said.
He said there are several ways residents of Pickerel Lake have attempted to get rid of weeds that have sprung up in the clearer waters. Some of them are simple, like using a rake, while others involve aquacide, which requires a permit and provides results that are “mixed at best.”
Other residents are getting their hands dirty and doing manual weed removal.
No matter how the weeds come out of the lake, the State Game, Fish and Parks Department has not made it easy to dispose of them. The loads residents have can’t be carted over any body of water, so getting to the dump is difficult for some. Once there, a large bill is usually tacked on, too.
The concern Loveland has for Lake Kampeska about the weeds is that they could breech the surface more easily than at Pickerel, which is a deeper lake.
“Overall (Kampeska) runs shallower, and you’re more likely to see that vegetation hit the surface and cause problems,” he said.
Ironically, the Game, Fish and Parks has proven to be quite the formidable enemy when it comes to taking care of the lakes, according to Roby. He pointed out the backward logic it employs along with its hands-off approach when it comes to cleaning up.
That hands-off approach morphs into more of a stranglehold when groups like the South Dakota Lakes & Streams Association tried to put together a study board on the legislative level with House Bill 1157.
“(That bill would have) simply created a study group to provide information to lake associations and to you to fight these aquatic invasive species, and it failed,” said Roby. “It got hammered in committee. … It was a matter of a simple study to provide the tools that we need, the research that we need, and it got killed.”
Roby elaborated.
“Why did it get killed?” he asked. “The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks was the primary negative speaker against the bill. That comes from the Governor’s Office.”
“If I could make one plea to you,” Roby told the crowd, “this is a primary year and an election year. Are you asking your candidates for South Dakota House and Senate and for governor if they’re aware that we have an (invasive species) problem?”
Johnson, also a board member of the Lake Kampeska Water Project, spoke more specifically on where federal interest lies in the state’s Game, Fish and Parks Department and why it’s so difficult to move forward without them.
“Right now, Game, Fish and Parks’ aquatic invasive species program is funded 90-plus percent by federal money, and because it’s funded by federal money, the vast majority of their boat inspections occur from the Missouri River to the Black Hills because that’s where the federal interest lies,” he said. “They’re not doing the inspections in Northeast South Dakota, where the problem and the threat is.”
