The 2012 annual meeting for the Pewaukee Lake Improvement Association (PLIA) is scheduled for 7 PM Wednesday, October 3rd. The meeting is open to the public and will be held in the Community Meeting Room (CMR) at the Pewaukee Public Library, 210 Main St. Pewaukee, WI 53072-3506, Phone: 262-691-5670. Directions to the library may be obtained here.

The PLIA recently asked members to write letters of support for more aggressive invasive species treatment, and we are grateful for the substantial response provided by the membership of the organization.

PLIA president Bill Milbrath, Jr. also contacted State Senator Neal Kedzie's office, and we were able to get a meeting this past Thursday with the DNR. A number of PLIA members attended along with Bill Milbrath, Jr. and Bob Giblin (Vice President) of the PLIA board.

At that meeting, we had an opportunity to express the absolute frustration the PLIA has experienced in attempting to make Pewaukee a better ecosystem. The DNR had previously established rules for Pewaukee Lake that did not apply to any other lakes in the State of Wisconsin, and those rules significantly interfered with the ability to use one of the most important tools in lake management, in conjunction with existing equipment and personnel. The DNR has now informed us that there have been some organizational changes, which will be helpful and supportive to the invasive species activities on Pewaukee Lake. We were also informed that some of the inappropriate Pewaukee Lake 2,4-D treatment requirements would be removed and were no longer necessary. Heidi Bunk from the Waukesha DNR office has put together some more up-to-date mechanisms for managing the state code requirements (i.e. electronic notifications and postcard application notices vs. multi-page documents needing to be printed, mailed, etc.).

The PLIA feels that we now have a much more open and cooperative environment with the Waukesha DNR office, who is interested in working with the PLIA to put a more aggressive plan together to combat this continuing problem of milfoil. Heidi will be assisting us in putting together a request for grant money to build a remediation plan for the Pewaukee Lake ecosystem focusing on 2013 and forward.

Thanks again to the membership for their efforts in this regard. Working together, we can make Pewaukee the best lake in Southeastern Wisconsin.