Langseth appeared before the Okabena-Ocheda Watershed District, which continues to meet via Zoom, to see if the district would help fund removal of the carcasses from his beach.
Langseth said his family, including grandchildren, use the beach all summer long. If left in place, the carp would continue to rot and leave sharp bones behind on the beach.
Okabena-Ocheda Watershed District Administrator Dan Livdahl suggested the board consider a 75% cost-share with Langseth for removal of the carcasses, up to a maximum of $500.
“It really ended up on the Langseth property,” said Livdahl, noting that the Dorward Dykstra property on the west basin also had a lot of dead fish come ashore. “We created more work for landowners than we thought we would. They all ended up going to certain shorelines.”
Langseth said with the volume of dead fish on his shoreline, it’s an “astronomical feat” to clean up. He hired a contractor to come in Tuesday evening and clean off his beach.
By the time the work was done, thousands of fish carcasses were removed from approximately 1,250 feet of shoreline that stretched from the Langseth property north and west to the Jay and Lisa Milbrandt property.
Board chairman Rolf Mahlberg, who has experienced two previous fish kills on the lake since 1963, said it's time consuming for the decaying fish to disappear, and noted the “way different distribution pattern” of this latest fish kill.
“In this case, it seemed like it picked on certain areas,” said Mahlberg, adding that he was inclined to support those whose shorelines were dramatically impacted while also cautioning that this action would set a precedent.
“One of the undertakings we have is we’re for water quality,” he continued. “We asked for support of the landowners (to do the drawdown).”
Board Manager Jay Milbrandt said that while he had a lot of fish on his shoreline, it wasn’t as many as the Langseths had.
“It’s pretty bad down at Al’s. It would be overwhelming,” said Milbrandt. “I’m overwhelmed with mine — I don’t even know what to do with (the dead fish).”
He went on to say that he would not be excited about doing a drawdown on Lake Ocheda again if he ended up with the amount of dead fish that Langseth had on his beach. At the same time, he wants to see what kind of impact the fish kill will have on water quality.
Mahlberg said based on what he’s seen, Lake Ocheda could be a “totally different body of water” as a result of the carp killed in the drawdown. He noted past fish kills that led to “unbelievably awesome” water quality.
“It’s kind of like coming out of surgery from hip replacement,” Mahlberg said. “You have to look beyond before you judge. Let’s have patience and see what our water quality does.”
“I am open-minded about it. If we don’t see a meaningful improvement of water quality as a result of this, it’s going to be a really hard sell to say we should do this again,” Milbrandt added. “If it’s an aquarium, we may say this is worth it.”
The board voted unanimously to cost-share with any landowners who choose to remove the dead fish from their shoreline at 75%, up to a maximum of $500.
In other business, the board:
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Was told that Livdahl will do water quality monitoring on Lake Ocheda starting this spring with checks for water clarity and vegetation every two weeks. Livdahl said the DNR typically doesn’t conduct its water quality survey until mid-August, and typically doesn’t do a survey on lakes with a significant fish kill in the same year.
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Discussed a planned meeting with the Worthington City Council during an April 21 work session. The watershed district will present information on how city funds have been spent to improve water quality in Lake Okabena, as well as discuss a proposal to trap carp in Worthington’s Sunset Bay to promote a fish kill.
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Directed Livdahl to continue monitoring a beaver dam on the Ocheyedan River within the Worthington Wells Wildlife Management Area. The property impacted thus far is owned by the Minnesota DNR and the watershed district. If the river expands onto private landowner property, the beaver dam. will be addressed.
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Learned that Bella Park will be a stop on an area wildlife tour. Livdahl said some long-overdue improvements are needed to the restrooms in the park, and figured it would cost several hundred dollars. Mahlberg suggested also bringing in portable toilets for the event.
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Received a request to collaborate with the University of Minnesota-Duluth on a rough fish population control grant application to the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources. The proposal is to conduct statewide trainings with bowhunters in advance of tournaments that promote shooting carp, educating people on the visual differences between native buffalo fish and invasive common carp.
Alec Lackmann, one of the researchers involved in the project, visited Worthington last week and collected 79 of the dead buffalo fish that had washed ashore on Lake Ocheda. He planned to remove the otolith (an ear bone) of each carp to determine its age.
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Approved erosion control permits for the city of Worthington during construction of a new, larger playground and restroom facility, and for Johnson Builders & Realty during the construction of another condominium in the Cherrywood Addition.
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