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After singing our and the Canadian national anthems Anthony Nordan offered our invocation and Wally Cole led us in songs. It was announced that May 4, 2022 was Women in Rotary Day, celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that Rotary clubs could not exclude women from membership on the basis of gender. We were all reminded that highway cleanup is scheduled for Thursday, May 12th at 6:00 p.m. A thank you was offered to The Colonel and His Privates (Tim Hunt, Jamie Larson, Steve Leitte, John MacFarlane, Keith Olson, Scott Schroeder and Jacklin Steege) for setup and takedown in April. Rotarians with May birthdays were acknowledged, including Randy Kempfer on May 1st, this writer on May 4th and Keith Olson on May 15th. Everyone was also encouraged to continue to sell raffle tickets, with the stubs and money to be turned into Brian Tjaden. We finally held our long delayed election of 2022-23 officers and board members and the slate published in last week's Rounds was elected. There were many brags and fines: John MacFarlane noted the passing of former Rotarians Dennis Emmen and Wayne Ronning; Anthony Nordan said that he is pretty confident he will be able to stay in Fergus Falls another year and that he is really excited about the slate of youth activities Salvation Army is putting together; Mark Bring contributed for missing last week's meeting and referenced Concordia College and UND in his remarks, but I can't decipher my notes or recall exactly what he said (i apologize); Keith Olson contributed for his mother turning 93 the prior week, missing last week's meeting and to celebrate the May birthdays; Brian Tjaden reminded everyone they had eight more meetings to use up their brag and fine card; Randy Kempfer reported he was in Washington D.C. and saw the Paul Harris memorial that is a block from the White House and part of the Point of Life Volunteer Pathway; Tim Hunt was glad to be back from a 5,600 mile trip where they visited family and saw greatgrandchildren for the first time, also noting he has a granddaughter at the University of North Carolina and a grandson getting his Masters at the University of Edinburgh; Ryon Welle shared why he had to miss a meeting and someone else suggested they would brag too if they didn't have to hear that again. Our program was presented by Spencer McGrew an Aquatic Invasive Species Specialist with the County's Land and Resource Management Department. He started with the County in 2016, while the program to address invasive species started in 2012 with an appropriation of $50,000 that was used to install lake signs and employ two water inspectors. Those were County funds and now the budget has grown to $460,000 appropriated by the State out of a total statewide budget of $10 million -- the funds are allocated on the basis of the number of public accesses and parking spots at lake accesses in a county. There are 100 water accesses in Otter Tail County. As the season ramps up, 15 people have been hired to start doing inspections as of May 17th, while nine more will be added as of June 2. They are all teaching the "clean, drain, dry" method. Spencer said that the vast majority of the movement of the invasive species is through our own inaction in failing to adhere to this method. He referenced some introduced species that do no harm, specifically the ring neck pheasant (from China) on the land side. One success story has been the discovery of a method to address sea lamprey that were introduced to Lake Superior and decimated the lake trout population The main challenge in our County right now are zebra mussels. They filter lake water, removing algae and carbon that other species need to survive. He described them as "short circuiting interconnected systems" and creating a real economic cost where present. In Otter Tail County, 80 of 1000 of our lakes have zebra mussels, including Hoot, Wright, Otter Tail and Big Pine. They are different from our native mussel in that zebra mussels mature in four years while native ones can take 100 years to mature and our much fewer in number as they have come into equilibrium with our ecosystem. The DNA of zebra mussels has been dissected but Spencer indicated we are still 10 to 20 years away from an effective preventative treatment. That is why it is so important to educate people on what needs to be done to prevent the further spread of the zebra mussel and other invasive species. Other invasive species referenced included Eurasian Milfoil, the Spiny Waterflea and Starry Stonewort. None of these are in Otter Tail County yet. The closest infestation of the Spiny Waterflea is in Mille Lacs and Leach Lake. We were also told the University of Minnesota has a great research center that is conducting world class research in this area. We all received a handy laminated 5½ x 8½ card with pictures of invasive species, stating what is unlawful to do and how to stop aquatic hitchhikers. |
