Long Lake Waters Association

Help Support Water Quality Efforts in Long Lake Creek Watershed!

Our fundraising goal is $25,000, to allow us to fund various water quality improvement strategies, including AIS training, carp population management strategies, and community education.  

Recently, the water quality in the watershed has declined significantly, resulting in lake closures and high levels of toxic blue-green algae.  As a result, we are tightly focused on leveraging our partnership with the MCWD, the cities of Long Lake, Medina and Orono, as well as our neighbors, to identify and fund efforts that will have tangible results to improve our local water quality.  

We are a scrappy organization, with a very low overhead costs (less than $2,500/year in administrative costs - and that is mostly to pay for web hosting and other technology to support our communications/educational efforts). You can feel confident that your donations will have a impact where it counts - in the watershed.  

Remember: Healthy Water, Healthy Future!

Recent Projects: 2021-2022 Carp Box Netting

One of the key drivers of the poor water quality in the Long Lake Creek Watershed is the overabundance of invasive carp.

These large, aggressive, non-native fish drive out native species like walleye and bluegill, and destroy the habitat for beneficial aquatic plants.  They stir up phosphorous that decreases water clarity and promotes algae growth.  They move throughout the entire seven lakes and many streams of the Long Lake Creek Watershed (fun fact: carp can move in < 2 inches of water!) and damage the ecosystem wherever they go.

After successfully radio-tagging carp in the watershed over the past several years, to gather population estimates, we (working with MCWD) identified areas of ingress/egress, and determined smart locations for a box netting effort.  Working with outside vendors, LLWA funded several removal projects.  We were able to corn bait shoreline locations (with 100 pounds of corn a night!) to attract carp, essentially "training" them to go to designated locations for the food.  After a week of "training," we are able to extract over 1000 carp.

Carp Solutions harvested excess carp from Long Lake using Box Nets, 
Summer 2021, 2022

The carp were over 22 inches in length and averaged almost 10 pounds. The good news is that migration of carp into Long Lake is limited and if we can continue to contain the carp population, we will reach the goal of less than 100 pounds pre acre, which is the management goal for carp to have only minimal impacts on lake ecosystems.

Thanks to the local lakeshore residents who allowed us access to their docks and lakeshore during this process!  

You can help!  

Any size donation makes a difference – Please consider supporting Long Lake Waters Association in our quest to improve water quality!  

We also host educational seminars to help residents understand the drivers of water quality, and create community around our watershed health. We conduct AIS training to help residents identify, track and report invasive species, and support local efforts to keep our waters clean.  We welcome neighborhood input and support. 

We are on a mission to protect and enhance the water quality within the Long Lake Watershed!

Volunteer Angus Capen Muldoon helped Carp Solutions monitor 
the bait stations during the box netting, Summer 2022

About the Long Lake Creek Watershed:

The Long Lake Creek Watershed covers over 7,619 acres, and includes seven lakes (School, Holy Name, Mooney, Wolsfeld, Dickey's, Long Lake and Tanager on Lake Minnetonka), as well as all the surrounding streams and wetlands. It encompasses three cities (Medina, Orono and Long Lake) and over 6,000 households.  

Long Lake Creek Watershed is also the headwater for Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Creek, which in turn flows into the Mississippi River.  

WSB Tagged and Tracked Carp to identify levels of infestation in 
the Long Lake Watershed, Summer 2019

We are all in this together!

Many Minnesota residents and visitors enjoy these lakes, streams and wetlands for fishing, boating, birding, swimming and hiking, but many don’t know that the Long Lake Creek watershed is seriously degraded, and its problems are impacting the downstream water bodies.  

Just like we learned in middle-school science class: we are all connected. 

Learn More!

Read more about our other work here:  http://Longlakewaters.org

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @longlakewaters

Seven Lakes - Three Cities - One Watershed