The Friends of Dauphin Lake group continues their fundraising efforts towards the purchase of a commercial weed harvester to be used on the lake.
Group member Bill Griffin says they have commitments so far for nearly sixty thousand dollars of the 200-thousand dollars price tag for purchasing and operating the harvester and trailer, adding a mail-out campaign is set to go out by the end of this week.
Griffin says they are trying to defeat a perception that this project is only beneficial for people who live along the lake.
He says the lake is dying due to increasing sediment levels in the lake, which is crippling a huge economic and tourist feature for the region.
"The golf course has been there for years, but people are not going to want to come play here if that lake turns into a marsh in front of it and is mosquito-infested. And we have Rainbow Beach campground that for a lot of years people wondered why they did the expansion, and now it is running at very close to being full all of the time because people have found that it is a great lake."
Griffin says long term, there needs to be solutions to the sediment problems on the lake, the majority of which comes from the Edwards Creek drain.
"That drain, just itself, just so people can understand the concept here, that brings in enough sediment to be seven and a half feet high, 16 feet wide, and if you want to put it in relative terms, a distance that covers from where you turn off to go to the Dauphin Lake Golf Course all the way to the corner of Main Street (in Dauphin). That is how much sediment load comes into the lake every year just from that one drain alone."
Griffin adds with Parks Canada considering shutting down Clear Lake to all boats this summer due to Zebra mussels, there needs to be a local recreation option for local boat owners.
The group hopes to be able to order the harvester by the end of the month, to have it here in time to do work on the lake this summer.
More information on the group's efforts can be found on the Friends of Dauphin Lake Facebook page.
