Here is some information from the 4th of 4 drawdowns conducted on Rice Lake in the winter of 2004-2005. The drawdown was conducted to help reduce the growth of non-native Curlyleaf Pondweed (CLP), which grows over the winter under the ice and reaches its maximum growth by Memorial day. By exposing the lake bottom to the winter elements, the non-native plants like CLP lose their ability to grow. Meanwhile, the native plants should continue to grow whether the lake bottom is exposed or not.
Previous efforts to remove CLP with harvesting and chemicals have proven to be unsuccessful. This drawdown proved to be the best effort yet to reduce the growth of CLP!
The next step in this process is to reintroduce the native plant growth to recover to levels seen prior to the CLP invasion.
