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City of FF should stick to lake plan [UPDATED]
Published 9:50am Thursday, August 23, 2012 Updated 11:52am Thursday, August 23, 2012To be certain, the green water, plethora of cattails and other plants, and incomplete road work surrounding it make Lake Alice easy fodder for Fergus Falls City Council and mayoral candidates.
However, we commend the city for sticking to its plan.
The bottom line is, more than a century of storm water drainage, eroding roads, goose droppings, and even the cyclone debris have done much long-term damage to Lake Alice. A long-term study was certainly in order to find solutions to the lake’s water quality.
One of the solutions to reducing the lake’s high algae content — which turns the water bright green — was to lower the lake level. The cattails and other plants surrounding it, while not aesthetically pleasing, also play a role in reducing algae levels.
Lake Alice is one of the city’s prime assets, and improving it for the long term should be the city’s ultimate goal. If it means that, for now, it doesn’t look quite as nice, we can live with it.
Indeed; it’s often the case that what pleases the eye doesn’t concide with what pleases nature. We’d be well advised to adjust our expectations, as the other side isn’t keen on changing her ways to suit our whims.
should be an ordnance against the use of the nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers that caused the Lake Alice problems in the first place.