Rice Lake Research Paper

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The Brainerd lakes area is a beautiful tourist attraction in central Minnesota. Thousands of people come to the huge resorts and their elaborate lake houses every summer. Many people come to fish as well which is one of the main attractions to the place I grew up in. Zebra mussels have been invading some of the lakes in our area now which is alarming. They are most prominent in Gull Lake which is a very large tourist lake which has 12 resorts and 5 separate restaurants that are accessible by water just on this lake. Zebra mussels are cleaning out the lake and killing off fish which is hurting the fishing on this once great fishing lake. Zebra mussels also have no positive ecological advantage in foreign waters also. Some people believe that …show more content…
This method is cheaper but people are more scared of its potential ecological effects. It hasn’t been proved to hurt any other organisms other than zebra mussels, but it is intimidating because it turns the lake completely white. Rhodi Lee explained the effects of potash in Tech Times. They conducted a test in a small infected lake near the cities named Rice Lake. Lee is a big advocate for potash, and believes it is the solution to the zebra mussel problem. Rice Lake is the only lake to ever use potash to get rid of zebra mussels. To treat the lake, they cut a hole in the ice and pumped the lake with potash, so the lake wouldn’t be out of commission in the summer. It killed all the zebra mussels, and they still haven’t found any negative effects of potash. I believe this solution makes the most sense to use but it is also still in the early experimental stage. Communities fear this treatment, and aren’t willing to try out the product. Environmentalists are very against this treatment as well. They are protesting the use of this product in lakes because they believe it will kill other organisms. They protested the tests done at Rice Lake and are trying to completely stop the use of potash in lakes. This method is the best way to kill zebra mussels and restore the lakes because of its effectiveness and low

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