Lake Rebecca Water Quality Improvement Project
Lake Rebecca serves as the primary muskie rearing lake for western Hennepin County and is widely used for recreational fishing. In recent years, the Lake Rebecca fishery has been negatively affected by poor water quality (experiencing several fish kills), and was added to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s impaired waters list in 2008.
The primary cause of the poor water quality in Lake Rebecca is excess nutrients (in this case, phosphorus) which come from three primary sources, runoff from the surrounding watershed, release from sediments and growth/decomposition of an invasive plant (curly-leaf pondweed). To improve water quality and enhance the fishery, three steps are being taken to reduce phosphorus:
- treating watershed runoff prior to drainage into Lake Rebecca
- sequestering phosphorus in the sediments using a chemical treatment (Alum)
- removing curly-leaf pondweed using a selective herbicide (Endothall)
Efforts to remove curly-leaf pondweed were successful in 2009 and will be continued for five years. Steps to reduce watershed runoff and sequester phosphorus in the sediments will be implemented in 2010.
