Wright County Regional Inspection Program

As many of you are aware, Wright County started their regional inspection program in October, 2017. They are now getting ready to reveal the results of the full year 2018 program. The public meeting and county board work session is scheduled for Tuesday, December 11 at 11 AM. It will take place at the Wright County Courthouse/Government Center located at 10 2nd Street NW, Buffalo, MN 55413. There is supposed to be time for public input, but I’m not totally convinced that will happen based on their “public input” meetings that were held in 2017. Here’s a link to the Wright County Soil and Water District website where a copy of the draft report and 2018 meeting minutes are located:

http://www.wrightswcd.org/Water_Management/wrip.html

That’s the official version, now here’s my take. I’ve been involved with AIS issues for over 27 years, starting with zebra mussels in Michigan when I lived in Detroit. I’ve seen lake associations, cities and counties do what they thought was necessary to stop the “boogeyman”. Other than the boating inspections in Cali-Russia, this one in Wright County has the potential to be the death knell for anyone wanting to enjoy the thousands of lakes in the state without severe interventions. Yeah, I know AIS is bad and we should all do our part for us, our children, the next 50 generations, blah, blah, blah. The problem is, most of us already do that, and my thought, based on many, many years as an angler and involvement with AIS issues in 5 different states, does not allow me to be a fan of the regional inspection program. The main reason is the lack of exit inspections, which in the case of the 4 pilot lakes in Wright County’s program includes 3 lakes that have zebra mussels and/or starry stonewort in them. I will never be able to see the justification of any program that does not include exit inspections, but that’s another diatribe.

Probably most of you have never seen me on this site before, and I apologize for that. I’ve been a member of IDO for several years, but not on a regular basis. I’m also a member of 5 different city/county commissions, watershed districts and water management organizations, including a member of the DNR’s Statewide AIS Advisory Committee. This is a group of 15 individuals from around the state, selected by DNR Management based on our varied backgrounds and experiences in AIS management programs. So, I get to be on the forefront of all things happening on the AIS venue, and the Wright County program scares me, and I’m older than dirt and not afraid of anything!!! I’ve also been selected to be on the DNR’s Regional Inspection Program Roundtable, with meetings scheduled in January and late February/early March to review regional inspection program guidelines.

Another issue that I would ask you to be aware of is the influence of a quasi-political voice known as the Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates. We had a presentation from this group’s leader last week at our AIS Advisory Committee meeting. He’s trying to get all the lake associations in each county to follow the “civic governance” model in making sure their voice is heard at the state legislature. Also, he’s been touring the state with the governor-elect, and is trying to influence the selection of a new DNR Commissioner that would be “lake association friendly”. Scary stuff, every resident of this state and country has the right to have their voice heard, but their tactics, in my opinion, resort to bullying tactics.

Sorry for the length of this post, I know the meeting time next week is not going to work for anyone that has a job and other responsibilities during the day, but hopefully some of you can make it. Thanks.

Yikes, I will try and make it. Outdoorsmen really missed an opportunity in the last Governors election imo.

I like that there are “exceptions” to the rules…which obviously favor the homeowners. How can they verify the docks and lifts weren’t transported? Can’t canoes, kayaks and paddleboards carry invasive species or are the immune to them?

There are two exceptions:

1. Non-motorized carry-in watercraft such as canoes, kayaks, or paddleboards;

2. Watercraft, boats, lifts, and docks stored in the riparian area of the lake and not transported over public roads.

One important thing I forgot to mention is that 5 more lakes have been submitted in the 2019 plan. Eventually, their goal is to include all lakes in a 15-mile radius of the inspection site.

Thanks for putting this on here. And for those that are saying, ‘glad this isn’t in my area’, well it will be coming to your county soon enough if this continues here. At the meeting this past summer, a rep from ottertail county asked, when can we start this, we want to do it now! Scary stuff. The Lakes guy is a total drip. Cares only about lake assocs and property values from what I have seen. I’m sure they are paying him good money to spew his garbage.

I’ve been to 2 of the input meetings and at both there has been opposition to this. But when you read their reports, all you get is, ‘everyone is for this, except for a few disgruntled fisherman’. I have a bad feeling this is going thru no matter what. Sure funny to have a pilot and then immediately start adding lakes to it. Thats no pilot to me.

ClownColor wrote:

I like that there are “exceptions” to the rules…which obviously favor the homeowners. How can they verify the docks and lifts weren’t transported? Can’t canoes, kayaks and paddleboards carry invasive species or are the immune to them?

There are two exceptions:

1. Non-motorized carry-in watercraft such as canoes, kayaks, or paddleboards;

2. Watercraft, boats, lifts, and docks stored in the riparian area of the lake and not transported over public roads.

Good point. Also, the station closes on Oct 31. You mean AIS can’t be spread after that. Hmmm, funny, thats when most lake owners are done enjoying there lakes and pulling the docks for the year. This is just a guise to privatize public lakes.

Yep Lakes and Rivers guy,(Jeff Forester is his name)is a paid lobbyist from the lake associations across the state.His number one thing is fisherman infest the lakes the homeowners pay high taxes so use the ais excuse and inspections to make it difficult for fisherman and others to use the lakes.They know they cant completely privitize lakes but in doing their inspections to hopefully keep as many non lakeshore owners as possible off of them.I emailed this guy and asked him what lake or lakes have been rendered completely useless from ais-he could not name one.I also pointed out to him most all of the best fishing lakes and rivers in Minnesota are infested but still remain some of the best fishing in the upper midwest if not the whole country-he told me all i had were armchair fish stories.In my first email I sent him I explained if I didnt recieve a reply I would go to the media saying his group is looking to privitize lakes and make access difficult for the public.Look at his website,Email this guy give him some greif like I did, wont take long and you will what he is all about.Cant believe county governments are buying into his scheme,then again they are going to take care of the highest paying taxpayers before the regular old citizen lake user.

Cant make it to this meeting as I cant get out of work however here is some info others could possibly use.

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_2018-12-10-07-37-02.png
   

2. 

   Screenshot_2018-12-10-07-20-53.png
   

I wrote a letter to Landwehr on this, I’m sure it won’t go thru now, haha!
He’s got the final say.

Someone on another site had a good point. How come bigger players aren’t stepping to the plate on this. Us little guys don’t stand a good chance of stopping it. Players like Boat Manufactures, Boat dealers, DU, B.A.S.S., or any other bigger groups. Is it just cause it is at a lower level now and people don’t know about it? Once this is state wide maybe groups will speak up? Or do they just not want to take the chance of pissing some customers off, aka lake assocs customers.

Some of the boat manufactures are
Leaders in the fight against AIS so don’t expect them to stand against a bogus program even when they know it’s bogus.

SpoonbillSlayer wrote:

Someone on another site had a good point. How come bigger players aren’t stepping to the plate on this. Us little guys don’t stand a good chance of stopping it. Players like Boat Manufactures, Boat dealers, DU, B.A.S.S., or any other bigger groups. Is it just cause it is at a lower level now and people don’t know about it? Once this is state wide maybe groups will speak up? Or do they just not want to take the chance of pissing some customers off, aka lake assocs customers.

It’s because there isn’t enough markers research yet so they can’t pick the majority.

You notice how all the meetings are always held during the hour’s that most working adults have to work. I’m sure most of those attending these meetings are the lake owners who probably have no problem making it to a mid day meeting.

fishthumper wrote:

You notice how all the meetings are always held during the hour’s that most working adults have to work. I’m sure most of those attending these meetings are the lake owners who probably have no problem making it to a mid day meeting.

Yes, I have noticed that.

I see in the report the stations are open 1/2 hour before sunrise and 1/2 hour after sunset. After reading the violations section it makes it sound illegal to launch your boat without an inspection before or after those times. Am I understanding this correctly?

NateR wrote:

I see in the report the stations are open 1/2 hour before sunrise and 1/2 hour after sunset. After reading the violations section it makes it sound illegal to launch your boat without an inspection before or after those times. Am I understanding this correctly?

Yes, that is correct. Well you can still launch any time, but I was told by them, sorry but if you want to launch before the station is open, all you would have to go is go to the station the night before!! They have no clue when and what times people fish or hunt.

Here is the feed from yesterdays meeting. DNR and Sheriff speaks at 1:08. General comments start at 1:48. Another meeting will be held in January.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bFIv3Gx__U

So the gist of this meeting was simply presenting the 2019 proposal for the county. A couple of things that came out it:

1. There is a huge discrepancy in the amount of money needed to enforce this based on the presentations from the lake association folks and the sheriff’s dept. The sheriff’s office does not want regular deputies enforcing this. Their position is to hire seasonal park rangers to enforce it IF it goes through.
2. The DNR has not received a draft proposal for 2019. They have only just received the results from 2018, and just got them the Thursday before this meeting. Meaning, they basically have no opinion yet, and this goes nowhere without DNR approval.
3. Due to time constraints, only a few people got to speak from the gallery. The board tabled the issue for further discussion for sometime later in January. I highly recommend that if you have an opinion on this, submit it to the Wright County board and the DNR. Be respectful with your opinion, and gather as many facts as possible. Factual information is always more helpful in swaying opinions with government officials.

Just an update.I emailed those screenshots to Wright County,and the dnr invasive species lady.The dnr invasive species lady got back to me today.She thanked me and said she was going to forward them to the dnr enforcement division and that they may contact me for more info.How can the leader of a group that supposedly cares so much about invasive species overlook illegal fish stocking?It could very easily spread these invasive species.In my mind this kills any integrity this guy has on the issue.I certainly plan to point this out at the next meeting they have.

That dude says “uhh” more than anyone I’ve ever seen.

AUTO_5 wrote:

That dude says “uhh” more than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Yeah, that was hard to listen to. Every since I had a public speaking course where we counted the number of times the speaker would use empty language words like “uhh” during a speech, I can’t ignore them anymore and drives me nuts.

The DNR is having their annual Roundtable meeting this Friday, January 11. I was on a conference call with the DNR Monday afternoon to learn about some of the logistics and topics. The draft agenda of the meeting was released yesterday afternoon.
Governor Walz is supposed to give some remarks during the opening. Also, the new DNR commissioner is supposed to speak between 4:30 and 5:30 PM.
There is a plan for a follow-up session which should include anglers and lake association people, hopefully sometime between the end of February and the end of March.

Ummm ahhh Ford Guy, the DNR invites people to attend the Roundtable. It’s not open to the general public.

My god, the answer is all around us, looking us right in the face. BUILD A WALL AROUND ALL LAKES. It’s been proven that a short wall will contain any passing of an unwante species without question.

Did you know, that every year, billions of potential lives are lost as a result of the unchecked spread of invasive species every year? This places a significant financial burden on our lakeshore owners, every, day. It’s estimated that each lakeshore owner spends $12 to $15 a year on AIS related expenditures.

Just last week, I personally sat with a family who knew this struggle all too well. I held the hand of a mother, her son’s foot was ravaged by zebra mussels on their 500′ of lakeshore property. They had to change the medium sized band-aid three times before he healed completely, this required their nanny to drive into town for a new box of bandaids. As you can see, the costs are multi-faceted.

I’m not a wall expert, so I will rely on the true experts. We estimate it will take $5.7B to build a wall along our 1,954 mile border with Mexico, that’s $2.9M per mile.

MN has 90,000 miles of shoreline, but let’s just say half of that is reasonable to build on(some lakes don’t allow motorized vehicles).

45,000 * $2.9M = $131 trillion. Of course ongoing maintenence will add up to trillions, but that will be someone else’s problem in a couple years. My proposal for that, since our poor lakeshore owners are already overburdened by taxes, is to tax non-lakeshore owners at a much higher rate. Given the high cost and our relatively low state population, I think it’s likely we’ll need to tax people in the 100-200% of total income range.

I think we will all agree that this is a common sense solution to this crisis of the soul of MN, which is our lakes.

Thank you, and good afternoon.

Urgent update:

Mar 19, 2019 Wright County AIS public meeting recap:

The Wright County passed the AIS ordinance today with a 3 to 2 vote. Now it is entirely up to the DNR commissioner to approve it. The Wright County commissioners said that if the DNR does not approve it by April 15th, the whole proposal is dead for good.

Here are some more details on today’s meeting. There were about 50 people attending, 99% lake shore owners. They all applauded the proposed ordinance (except for the self-certification part). One after another they spoke about how much trouble their lake is in and how much it has cost them to keep AIS at bay. They did a great job of presenting “the sky is falling” to the county commissioners (I always find it interesting that there is no mention of restrictions on lake shore owners using lawn fertilizer that turns the lakes into a green slimy mess. Seems to me that would be a no brainer if you really cared about the lake). Most made a point that they are not trying to privatize their lake and are offended when they hear that. On the other hand, not once did anyone mention that we need to come up with a better way that does not restrict access. Only one lone fisherman addressed the council and said that he bypassed the three test lakes last year and will bypass the additional lakes if this passes, too much hassle. Hmm, funny how that works. Imagine if this catches on and all the lakes are restricted, sell the boat I guess. There was also mention of a need for an exit inspection process. Not sure what that means, but didn’t sound like it would be in lieu of the proposed inspections and you may end up having to get inspected before and after you go to the lake.

Also of interest, the commissioners said they have received many inquiries from lake associations around the state and there were several other lake association representatives at the meeting to observe and see how they could implement this same strategy. So Wright County will be the test case for every county in the state to run with this. What a disastrous precedent. Not to mention the regulations and tags would be different for every county, making it cumbersome and impractical. The self-certification will have a cost of $10 to $40, so multiply that by how many counties you fish.

What you can do if you want to stop this from happening:
The entire fate of this proposal now rest on the DNR. The Wright County commissioners will meet with the DNR commissioner on Mar 21. If the DNR does not approve the plan by April 15, it will be dead. Send your concerns to these DNR contacts right away so that they receive it before they meet with the Wright County people.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

PS, you can read the emails send to Wright County on this link. Notice how organized the lake associations are with their form letter that you just sign and send. In particular, notice the one from the Clearwater association #34 on the page (see where this is heading?).
http://www.co.wright.mn.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/6489?fileID=13556

Welcome to In-Depth Dale, it’s been a while.

Swede wrote:

What you can do if you want to stop this from happening:
The entire fate of this proposal now rest on the DNR. The Wright County commissioners will meet with the DNR commissioner on Mar 21. If the DNR does not approve the plan by April 15, it will be dead. Send your concerns to these DNR contacts right away so that they receive it before they meet with the Wright County people.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

PS, you can read the emails send to Wright County on this link. Notice how organized the lake associations are with their form letter that you just sign and send. In particular, notice the one from the Clearwater association #34 on the page (see where this is heading?).
http://www.co.wright.mn.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/6489?fileID=13556

Thanks for sharing. Couple of thoughts:

– I have heard numerous times that the DNR is not a big fan of this. So please everybody, use your voice and let them know that they should stick to that and shut it down.

– I heard about this on MPR today and they mentioned that if it does go through, citizens would be able to attend a one-time session that certifies they know how to inspect their own boat, which would allow them to bypass the inspection station. I still am not a fan of this program, but this is the first I’d heard of such a bypass and felt like it was a positive step.

Bk has the shortest email in 290 pages of emails

I heard about this on MPR today and they mentioned that if it does go through, citizens would be able to attend a one-time session that certifies they know how to inspect their own boat, which would allow them to bypass the inspection station. I still am not a fan of this program, but this is the first I’d heard of such a bypass and felt like it was a positive step.

Umm, I think stopping it all together is the route to go. What you posted just allows people to think even if the measure passes they can do a little class and be OK. It won’t work that way. A lack of attention & concern & action from the anglers will just justify to the DNR that nobody really cares. Take 2 minutes and send the email in opposition.

Yes they have the self certification amandment in there, but think about all the other counties jumping on this, each with there own regs and tags blah blah blah. This needs to be stops before it gets out of hand. Also of interest at the meeting… several lake association representatives expressed that the self certification should be removed from the ordinance. I suspect that other counties and assoications will not want that part in there. Plus it will cost you, so each county will have a fee. Wright is talking about $10 to $40.

This is a death of a thousand cuts. First it was restriction by controlling parking, the AIS stations are the next layer of restriction. Once it is implemented, it will only grow and squeeze us more and more. Did you ever think we would have casinos in MN, it started with pull tabs, then horse racing, get the idea. It is the boiling frog strategy. I hate getting involved with this crap, but this is serious enough that I took a half day off work to go to the meeting. I have had an uneasy feeling deep down ever since I found out about this proposal.