"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
~ Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
I was surprised to find the real Hobbes quote. It is not difficult to see why it is always misquoted. Not sure it applies to this post, but I like it, so it's in.
Anyway, back to the Gadabout….
Yesterday, the nice helpful Water Resources Specialist
was down on our property working around the Lake. There is a easement and a rudimentary road across all the properties on the west side of the lake to allow the City access. The main part of the easement is on our property. There is a 10'x10' or so asphalt pad that is adjacent to the electric pump and large sunken cistern. This is where she was parked. On personal side note, our grand kids have derived some small childish pleasure from jumping on the metal lid of the cistern to cause a loud, hollow booming sound.
She is in charge of carrying out the Goldfish Pogrom, Holocaust and Piscicide. I wasn’t around, but Ann went down and talked to her.
She was walking along the edge of the lake collecting dead gold carcasses and cleaning up a little. Our neighbors across the lake over on the east side were encouraging her to come over to their side and collect there too. But that side of the lake is a very steep bluff - difficult and dangerous to navigate and dern near impossible to haul fish carcasses back up. Especially when it is muddy like yesterday. So she didn't. I am ashamed to include this next sentence. Close enough for government work.
Ann got her name and last night, I sent her an email
asking some questions that were burning my feverish mind.
Since yesterday, we got several inches of snow and the Silence of the Fish is now hidden beneath a beautiful layer of snow. It is very peaceful and serene.
 |
| Peaceful snow covers the Piscicide. |
Here is the email I got back from her. You may deduce my questions from the answers I got. You might also note that there are two interesting links to the internet down at the bottom of her email. I encourage you to click those to assuage your curiosity.
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for the email! This is Jessie, and yes I had a nice chat with Ann yesterday while I was out checking the lake. I’m glad she stopped out as we’re always happy to make a personal connection, especially at lake access points where we’ll likely be visiting quite often in the next year or two.
Almquist Lake does receive
stormwater runoff from streets/roofs/yards/driveways via four different pipes,
but otherwise the only pond upstream is a very small constructed storm basin
between Penkwe Circle and Shevlin Ct, and no other upstream lakes or natural
ponds.
The stormwater lift station
and stormwater pipes pump lake water out of Almquist to the North, through
three other small ponds, and eventually to Thomas Lake. Thomas flows eventually
to Blackhawk Lake, and then to Minnesota River. Almost all the surface waters
in Eagan are connected either by surface flow or underground stormwater pipes,
although whether the pipes constantly have water in them, or are wet at some
points and dry at others, depends on the pipe (angle, location and depth).
Because water is pumped out of Almquist with an electric pump and then
eventually flows downhill to the next pond at a certain high point, I don’t
think it’s possible for fish to gain access back upstream from there, if that’s
what you mean? Some places may see fish movement like this, but not all.
We know there are already goldfish in Thomas Lake, but there are also intentional efforts by the City and the Minnesota DNR to keep sport fish populations thriving in Thomas and other large public access lakes in Eagan, which helps cut down on any goldfish problems. They are an invasive species to Minnesota, but seems like they are less of a problem when other fish are around to keep their populations in check, either by consuming their eggs or the adult goldfish up to a certain size. However when goldfish get into small shallow ponds without the depth or oxygen levels required to support the other fish survival, the goldfish population explodes and the ecosystem declines, often contributing to turbid water, higher dissolved nutrients, and algae blooms. I think it’s likely that (several? many?) but certainly not all, of the surface waters in Eagan contain goldfish, almost all due to folks either discarding aquarium fish, or wanting to see pretty fish swimming in the pond, without realizing how harmful their actions may be.
Goldfish absolutely can survive the winter temperatures, and extremely low
oxygen levels. Smaller (younger) goldfish with higher metabolism are more
susceptible to oxygen stress, and would explain why it’s taken two weeks
post-treatment to see some of the larger goldfish succumb in Almquist. I am
hopeful that this one rotenone treatment will be enough to kill all the
goldfish, but we won’t really know until springtime when we can get back on the
lake and look for survivors. If we are not successful at removing all the
goldfish with this one treatment, I have some ideas for things to try other
than rotenone, but I think we’ll go one step at a time. I would prefer not to
have to repeat the rotenone treatment, and we are still planning to apply
liquid alum to the lake next fall which should help water quality improve as
well, and we’ll keep assessing progress.
We have tips on our website about not dumping aquariums, but nothing yet specific about goldfish. Maybe we’ll work on something soon :) Meantime, here is the DNR website about goldfish that you may find interesting: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/aquaticanimals/goldfish.html and a news story about folks doing a similar, arguably more complicated project up in Carver County: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/11/01/thousands-of-goldfish-removed-from-twin-cities-lake
Hope this helps, appreciate your interest and I will look forward to keeping the neighborhood updated on progress in the coming months!
|
|
Office: 651-675-5320 |
For those of you who care, here is a link to what Rotenone does. That link introduced me to a new word: "Piscicide." Which is a really cool word. So...I went back through this post during the edit and changed all the "apocalypses" to "piscicide". Use a new word three times and it is yours for life!
The perspicacious reader will note that one does not have to remain in ignorance of her pronouns. The more perspicacious reader will be able to deduce my opinion of that. I choose not to elaborate that opinion as she is being so helpful to us.
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad/Geoff
ps, I originally attributed the quote to Thomas Mann. I hang my head in shame!
|
No comments:
Post a Comment