recreation access – Aquarius-Systems

Rhode Island Beach Access Debate Highlights Rights to Walk Fish and Collect Seaweed

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 15:02:14 +0000

The issue of beach access is ever present in Rhode Island, but has taken on renewed prominence in the last few years, due at least in some part to a man’s arrest in June 2019. He was collecting seaweed on the beach just east of Charlestown Town Beach. Beachfront property owners had hired a security guard to tell people like Keeley to move along, when he refused the police were called.

Rhode Island law says people have the right to access the shore to do things like fish and swim and walk and collect seaweed. Different people have different interpretations about where those rights begin and end, what can be done on either side, and how that line can even be measured.

Donations Help Fund Weed Harvesting and Lake Maintenance at Public Boat Launches

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:41:47 +0000

A public boat launch doesn’t necessarily make access to a lake free. There are costs involved in keeping the waters weed free, navigable for recreation and stocked with fish. McDill Inland Lake Protection and Rehabilitation District’s president Krista Olson asks people visiting any lake to utlize the donation boxes. Those donations are very important for the lake!

McDill Inland Lake P&R District kicked off the 2021 weed harvesting season on June 11th. The harvester chops and collects weeks 30-40 hours a week so boats can navigate through the water. The harvester will collect about 14 loads weekly.

Study Finds Strategic Weed Harvesting Can Remove Phosphorus and Support Clear Lake Management

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 21:18:37 +0000

Intensive in-lake and watershed management caused Kohlman Lake, the northernmost lake in the Phalen Chain of Lakes in Minnesota, to go from a relatively turbid to a clear water state. Aquatic plants responded to the clean waters by growing up to the surface. The change in lake state and a comprehensive water quality monitoring dataset gave researchers an excellent opportunity to develop and assess a strategic aquatic plant harvesting approach to a balanced lake management plan that centers on navigation, recreation, aesthetics, water quality and ecological function.

Aquatic plants provide several ecosystem services such as habitat, food, cover and shading, temperature moderation, and nutrient uptake and sequestration. The overall approach to mechanical weed harvesting was conservative and the plant mass removed from the lake was about 14% of the peak mass that would be present without harvesting.

Harvesting removed 24% of the total phosphorus (TP) captured by aquatic plants and this accounted for 4% of the TP load derived from external sources. In addition, the cost of TP removal by aquatic plant harvesting is quite economical when compared to phosphorus management practices that take place in upland watershed areas. Data from this study suggest that harvesting certainly presents cost-effective opportunities for TP removal and has the potential to factor into dynamic and creative watershed management approaches.

Reprinted with permission from NALMS. The original article published in Lakeline, Volume 40, No. 4 Winter 2020.

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