LLPOA Lake Management Committee Update: January 13, 2026

1. Whole lake spray for invasive curly leaf pondweed – We will do a whole lake spray again this year to control the invasive curly leaf pondweed. This will be done prior to the growing season for the native plants in the lake. If we did not do this the curly leaf would take over the lake before the native plants had a chance to grow.
2. Weed harvesting – We plan on continuing the weed harvesting this summer. This will be the third summer we have done this. We had 30 days of harvesting in 2024, 36 days in 2025 and plan on 50 days this year. The main purpose behind weed harvesting instead of continuous spraying is that by removing the weeds we remove the excess nutrients from our ecosystem and reduce the amount of plant material that would be going to the bottom of the lake thereby reducing the silt buildup on the bottom.
3. Biodredge – We plan to continue the biodredge treatments we have done for the last 3 years. This product (think probiotics for the lake) helps reduce the sediment layer on the bottom of our lake. We plan to treat the Firth channel, North Bay, Half Moon Bay and the South Beach swim area again this year. These are the areas of the lake with the most sediment buildup.
4. Water testing – We plan to utilize the Lake County Health Department for additional water testing as needed between their twice monthly testing schedule of our lake. We have to transport the additional samples to them and there is an additional cost for the tests. These tests are for e.coli only, not for harmful algal blooms.
5. Water circulators – We plan to add a circulator at North Beach and a second circulator at South Beach. Increasing the water circulation in these areas will help reduce the algal buildup (and blooms) as well as inhibit plant growth in the swim areas. We did see an improvement in the area around the first circulator at South Beach last year.
6. Floating islands – We plan to add additional plants to the floating islands this year as we lost some plants to the hungry muskrats. The plan is to minimize the cost by using some of the plants from the shoreline and buffer strip areas at South Beach as we prune those areas. We have a better handle on the plants to use that the muskrats will not eat. We also discussed relocating the islands to areas where we do not have existing plant growth in the lake and grouping the islands together (possibly 2 together in 1 location and the other 2 grouped together in another location). A suggestion was made to add signage at both beaches explaining what floating islands are and their benefits to our lake.
7. South Beach buffer strip – We will be adding plant markers in the buffer strip to identify the various individual native plants we have there. There is currently a larger informational sign in the buffer strip.
8. Fencing for the South Beach swim area – Paul and John P. will be looking into a new design for fencing at the South Beach swim area for the summer months. The focus will be to make it easier for homeowners to open the fencing to access the swim area as well as making it easier to close the fencing when they are done. As we have seen, geese are very adept at finding any opening to gain access to our beach areas.
9. Summer Kickoff -We have decided to discontinue the Summer Kickoff event this year after 2 years. It just hasn’t garnered the interest and support to keep doing it.
10. Tony Baade Father’s Day Weekend Fishing Derby – We are looking for a volunteer (or two) to run this fishing derby. It is held the Saturday morning of Father’s Day weekend from 9:00 AM to Noon. We have held this event for a number of years. The volunteer would oversee the derby collecting information from the fish caught by the participants and awarding prizes to the winners in each category. It’s easy to do and we will train you. Please reach out to Tom Casey if you are interested or have questions about it. Without a volunteer this year we will be unable to continue this worthwhile event.
11. Major inlet silt traps – Paul is researching building and installing silt traps at our major inlets. The objective will be to trap silt before it gets into our lake. The village will remove the silt from these traps if they are close enough to the road for their vacuum truck to access them.
12. Hawk kites – We plan on using hawk kites at South Beach as geese deterrents at the beach as well as on the swim raft. These kites have proven to be an inexpensive deterrent for geese. Marty used one this past fall on his lakefront property with success. You can find more information about them at this link hawk kite.
13. Swans – Two different swans have been spotted on our lake recently in the open water. It would be great if the swans chose to nest here and stick around for the summer as they are the best natural geese deterrents around. The geese will steer clear of any area that swans inhabit.
14. Beaver update – Three beavers have been removed from our lake recently. All lakefront homeowners are encouraged to wrap any trees they may have along their shoreline or in the vicinity of their shoreline. Beavers are a part of nature and hang around water so we will always be susceptible to them coming into our lake. The best way to prevent them from hanging around is to protect any trees near the shoreline. This way they will just find another area to do their work.
15. Fish stocking – We last did a fish stocking 6 years ago so we are overdue. We will be doing a fish stocking this year and the cost is being covered by a generous donation from one of the members of our lake management team.
    We will let the group know when the fish stocking happens for those curious as to how the process of releasing the fish works.
16. Carp removal – We will continue to remove carp from our lake based upon the help of the Lake County Health Department. We have removed 156 carp from our lake over the last 3 years. Carp are not a native species and are detrimental to the ecological balance of a lake. Lake County does carp removal for many lakes in Lake county. They have told us that Loch Lomond does not have the most carp compared to other lakes but we do have the largest carp they have seen in the county.
17. Data collection – Gerry and Doug will continue their expanded data collection efforts this summer. Utilizing this data will be extremely helpful to us in planning our lake water quality improvement efforts. Gerry also informed the group that the Lake County Health Department will be doing a lake report on Loch Lomond this summer (as well as St Mary’s and Butler Lake). They do this for lakes every 10 years (our last one was in 2015 and is up on our website if you are curious). This will give us additional information and recommendations from them.
18. Questions were asked about plant coverage in the lake, native plant species for buffer strips and the 2015 Lake County Health Department report on Loch Lomond. We have documents on all 3 of these topics as well as many other topics on our website. Go to the ‘Our Lake’ page and scroll down to the bottom.

LLPOA Lake Management Committee  –  January 2026