Register for Whitefish Area Property Owners Association's AIS roundtable scheduled May 1

The Whitefish Area Property Owners Association wants to kick off the summer season at the lake with its sixth annual Aquatic Invasive Species Roundtable program from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 1.

The program will be presented in a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns.

All members, area lake association members, local government officials, neighbors, students and all interested people are invited to attend this free event.

Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-wapoa-ais-roundtable-tickets-151241057073.

WAPOA will offer a program with Nick Phelps, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and director of the Minnesota AIS Research Center. He will provide a report on AIS research successes and plans and new decision-making initiatives about AIS management.

MAISRC research successes are the long-term key to controlling and preventing non-native AIS in lakes.

WAPOA will also host Naomi Blinick, a conservation science graduate student at the University of Minnesota and a researcher at MAISRC, to provide information about the effects of zebra mussels on the success of walleye in Minnesota lakes. Blinick will address the research in the Gretchen Hansen lab at MAISRC on these aquatic matters.

Valerie Brady, a professor with the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute, works on using aquatic invertebrates and fish to indicate the condition of aquatic ecosystems, as well as investigating effects of AIS on aquatic ecosystems. Her research with MAISRC focuses on an evaluation of the risk of dispersal of spiny water flea by angling equipment.

Leif Olmanson, a researcher with the University of Minnesota Department of Forest Resources, has been developing remote sensing applications to characterize water and land resources for large area ecosystems. He currently leads a team of researchers and computer scientists to build a near real-time water quality monitoring system for Minnesota’s over 10,000 lakes using satellite imagery to provide critical water quality information for lake management.

For more than 50 years, WAPOA has served the mission of strong advocacy for actions to sustain and improve quality surface and groundwater in the Whitefish area and the Pine River Watershed.

For questions about this program, contact Tom Watson, WAPOA past president, at twatson@iphouse.com .