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LLPA Spring Annual Meeting

Long Lake Preservation Association’s annual meeting on Sat. May 24 has a new venue this year. Hunt Hill Audubon Sanctuary in Sarona will host the event, instead of Tomahawk Scout Reserve.

The LLPA welcomes back all watershed friends with a social at 9:30 a.m. at the dining hall. Early arrivals can browse environmental displays and purchase lead-free tackle as part of the Keep the Lead Out wildlife survival campaign. Or pick from a colorful supply of LLPA gear, including new ballcaps for youth and T-shirts for women. Green thumbs and others can sign up for an improvement project at the Brill Dam.

At 10 a.m. updates from the Scout camp director, warden and a Washburn County invasive species specialist kick things off in the program building, followed by a short business meeting. The featured speaker is a Long Lake familiar, UW-Stevens Point professor Eric Olson.

Olson’s multimedia presentation is “What Would Aldo Do? How To Think Like A Lake.” It’s conservationist Aldo Leopold he references in this mix of philosophy, ecology and slides, with special attention given to Long Lake. Though the lake is unique among Wisconsin’s many water bodies because of it length and depth, Olson says there’s still a small margin for error, after which the lake would change from its present high quality. He’ll address such things as oxygen depletion, nutrient levels, erosion, and effects of warming waters on cisco, which are the primary food for walleye.

But the professor whose doctoral study was this watershed remains optimistic about the Long Lake of the future. He will show ways that lakeshore landowners and lake users can ensure, by their personal responses, that the watershed will withstand the challenges of climate change, increasing use and shoreland development.

The annual meeting adjourns at noon, after which people are encouraged to enjoy the maturing demonstration rain gardens, which are a continuing project of LLPA and Hunt Hill.

Map - Directions to Hunt Hill.