2026 Curly-leaf project

PLM has provided their 2026 Curly-leaf Pondweed (CLP) treatment proposal. They identified 13 treatment sites around the lake totaling approximately 80 acres. However, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources permit limits treatment to about 70 acres, and our current budget of $26,000 will allow treatment of roughly 50 acres. This represents a strong first step in our broader CLP management effort.

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Treatment costs vary by site, depending on acreage and especially water depth. Deeper water requires significantly more herbicide, making those areas more expensive to treat.

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We asked PLM to prioritize the sites based on CLP density and recommend where we could reduce acreage to stay within our budget. This is Year One of a multi-year management project. Each year, we will focus treatment on the areas with the highest CLP density. Sites not treated this year will be re-evaluated for priority next season.

This is a significant investment for our lake association. Granite Lake has never been treated for CLP, and the entire littoral zone is currently infested. To sustain the program, we will need to raise at least $25,000/year over the next three years. We also plan to contract a full-lake Point-Intercept Survey in 2027 to assess the effectiveness of our treatments.

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The primary goal is to treat the CLP before it produces new turions — the tough, seed-like structures that drop into the sediment and can sprout new plants for years to come. By treating early and repeating the effort over multiple years, we can gradually deplete the turion bank and reduce future outbreaks.