County help needed to manage lake levels

The Long Lake Improvement and Sanitation Association said they worked with Stormwater Management in 2019 to determine the Long Lake level should be kept at a low level. Any time we have rain, they open a gate at the dam and lower the lake. It’s ruining the natural environment of the lake. It is a flow-through lake with no flow. Weeds all over the perimeter and the Chicago Ave. channel we live on is becoming a swamp.

Stormwater Management says they do not get involved in any lake-level decisions. Shouldn’t opening a sluice gate at the dam for flooding be done by them? We bought this house in 1992 to have a pontoon boat and use the lake. We had to sell our boat three years ago and it is affecting our property values. If they live in a flood zone, they have a conflict of interest. If we have 7 inches of rain, there’s going be flooding regardless of the lake level. Keeping the lake low does not prevent flooding.

It has become a major rift in the whole neighborhood. I made a motion at the May 2023 meeting that they keep the sluice gate closed at 739.5 feet above sea level instead of closing it at 739.1 feet, which they had been doing. They didn’t take up the motion. There was no discussion and they only chastised me in front of the association membership and Kevin Hunter, our Lake County representative. The lake had been lowered six times and was a foot low just before a drought.

This past spring the lake had milfoil weeds all around everybody’s piers because with the low water, there was no flow and photosynthesis caused the weeds around the lake to thrive.

We need Lake County government to step up and work with them as we cannot, to stop the mismanagement of this beautiful glacial lake.

Judd Hansen

Long Lake