MAY 1, 2010
Prior to the Officers and Trustees reports, Tim Lovett asked all veterans to stand and be recognized for their service to our country with our sincerest gratitude.
Secretary’s Report: 65% of the LIA members have renewed as of April 29th; there are 89 new members.
Behm’s Restaurant will be hosting a GLRIC presentation at 9:00a.m., Saturday, May 8th. The public is welcome.
Trustees Reports:
Bill Ringo, President Emeritus, applauded the Mercer County Chapter of Pheasants Forever for their recent award for Excellence In Conservation “Grass Roots Plan”. The chapter raised over $250,000 for conservation efforts. Bill Ringo was part of a group that took 80 chemistry and biology students from Marion High School to do studies on the lake. The turbidity level (how far down into the water a marker can be seen before it is obscured by stirred up sediment.) was measured at 4 feet! It has been a long time since we have been able to see more than a few inches into the water.
Mark Piening, Vice President, presented detailed statistics for the new LIA website. In summary, there have been 2725 visits to the LIA website; of those visits 45% went directly to the website, 29% came through referring sites, i.e. “savegrandlake.com” and 26% came through Organic (free) search engines, for example, Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. The average time that someone views the site is 4min, 16 sec. User access increases with each release of the ValPak advertising campaign to “SAVE GRAND LAKE”. Remember to use the site to contact your legislator, become a member or renew your membership or to make a tax deductible donation to the GLSM Restoration Initiative (aka: the Streamside Project). There are 2 banner advertising slots open, for $450 and 2 other advertising slots open for $350/each.
Dave Meyer reminds members to get tickets for the 50/50 drawing and tickets are on sale for the pastel print of the lake through July.
Tom Rampe reminded everyone that Franklin Township will be dedicating the walkway and bridge on May 15. The LIA was a significant contributor to that bike path.
Larry Baker, Coast Guard Auxiliary, reminds us that May 8th at 8:00a.m. There will be a Boater Safety Class. Children born after 1982 that are operating watercraft equal to or greater than 10 hp must take the class.
May 22, Larry will host a Boating Safety Check at the docks on the West Bank. Have your boat checked without risk. Larry could use some volunteers to help with this project. Call him at 937-418-2902.
Mike Enderude, Chairman of the Barstool Open, asks judges to sign up with Belinda Froning. Belinda’s tel number is 419-268-9556. It is tons of fun to be a judge. There is a morning shift and an afternoon shift. Sign up early for the best chance of working your desired site. Signs go up next week! Encourage your friends to sign up and play. Also there are 2 TVs being raffled off. Jeff Erbes printed the tickets for us. LIA members, please buy some, and/or take some raffle tickets to sell.
Milt Miller, GLRIC Update: April 30th the first “Airy Gator” aerators were turned on. They process 57,000,000 gallons of water daily. To date over $450,000 has been collected. Due to some unexpected additional costs, the GLRIC has increased the fundraiser limit to $600,000. Every donation is important. Please make a donation. Most recently two agribusinesses, Cooper Farms and Advanced AgriSystems donated a total of $75,000 to the project. Brian Miller says that you can see the aerators in the bay at Park Grande/Shockers on Bruce Road and at 10 Notheana in Southmoor Shores. If you go to Mr. Buschur’s home site on Notheana, PLEASE be considerate and stay on the paved areas – not the grass. The Streamside Aerators are part of the puzzle. We are also applying for working grants. Education is important on every level. Brian and Milt will meet with your organization to explain the project. Randy from the Streamside Corporation thanked the commission for unprecedented commitment, support and speed on this project.
Kent Bryan, Planning & Community Development Director, presented other possibilities for lake clean up. Other pieces of the lake clean up “puzzle” are a) manure removal and conversion to fuel, b)sediment collection & removal, c)algae treatment, d)lake water treatment, e)shoreline erosion. Projects underway are the county sewers going out to the Northwoods area and the Maria Stein/Chickasaw stimulus funds for more sewer lines; the creation of a Port Authority and a land-based algae venture to use the algae harvested from the lake. Kent and others with similar interests are studying and submitting CIG grants to federal government, evaluating conservation grants, soy-based flocculants to attack the nutrients and make for easier removal from the lake. Additional studies are being done by University of Bowling Green regarding which strains of blue green algae actually produce toxins and how to modify the existence of those species, and the conversion of algae to fuel as a potential source of revenue.
Other considerations under investigation, are creation of islands, and an application for such to the Army Corps of Engineers; shoreline protection; animal waste conversion to energy and the significant long-term impact to our economy. Kent is meeting with the Ohio EPA to see what can be done with the nitrogen and phosphorus in our lake. They are also looking into aeration equipment that is run by solar energy. Sources for project funding will include federal, state, and private funding.
The city and Dept of Natural Resources are also interested in lake dredging, which would take many years. Senator Sharrod Brown has submitted a request for line item funds to clean up lake. It has moved from his office to committee. There is a request for a 3.5 million dollar grant for a permanent site for the location of dredging material.
The World Health Organization sets the standard for the toxin levels. There is neither historical research data nor lab research; it is an empirical number. The number set is 20ppb (parts per billion) of toxin levels in the lake. At the NOAH meeting in April it was determined that no testing or results from testing of the effect of micro cystic toxins on humans could be found.
Craig Morton provided the lake report. New barge is in the water! Craig brought photos of the assembly and completion of the new barge! Good work! Still using the track hoe and crane from Lake Loramie. The lake water looks great! Dr. Hiskey at Wright State Lake Campus attributes this to the extended ice and snow on the lake. His last test showed the toxins to be 0.9 parts per billion. The Northwood DMRA is finished. Riley bay east dredging to begin in 1-2 weeks. Remember new Crappie rules are 9” minimum length to keep, 30 bag limit. Get your boats and trailers checked.
For the first time in 4 years the Park office is fully staffed. The plan is to cover the Windy Point geo tubes with riprap. Be sure to watch for orange buoys near the dredge pipeline, the south side Aerator curtain at Park Grande/Shockers, they are marked but use extra caution not to run into it.
Theresa Howick, LIA member and farmer, addressed the membership to point out that lower toxin rates are also the result of the EQUIP program paying farmers to maintain filter strips so that the manure run off can be contained on their land.
Mark Piening was the winner of $32.50 from the 50/50 drawing. He donated the winnings back to the LIA.
Tim Lovett reminded members to sign up other members to the LIA. Legislators respond to numbers. We are over 800 members strong. Please help our numbers grow.
NEXT MEETING IS JUNE 5, 2010, 10:00A.M., CELINA MOOSE
PLEASE BE SURE TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP. THIS COULD BE YOUR LAST NEWSLETTER!