PATRIOT
Earlier this summer, the Waconia Patriot carried a story about a carp harvest conducted on Piersons Lake near Waconia in to help improve water quality. The effort involved a group of Laketown Township residents and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD).
Common carp are abundant in the Six Mile Creek – Halsted Bay portion of the watershed, and can be a driver of poor water clarity and algae blooms by stirring up phosphorous containing sediment while the bottom-feeding fish search for insect larvae to eat. Managing carp populations is one strategy to improve water quality and ecological conditions across the watershed, according to Jill Sweet, MCWD research and monitoring technician.
By Al Lohman