RM receives $120K for Pelican Lake invasive fight

The Rural Municipality of Prairie Lakes — which includes Pelican Lake — has received $120,278 from the provincial government to keep up the fight against aquatic invasive species like zebra mussels.

The funds will allow the RM to pay for the inspection station it installed at the north end of the lake, Prairie Lakes Reeve Darren Seymour told the Sun on Wednesday.

“We hired staff and we put up infrastructure,” Seymour said. “We did that last year and that was included in our application. So now that we’ve received the funding, we will sit down and collaborate with our community and figure out the strategy going forward.”

Prairie Lakes and five other organizations — including Indigenous, municipal and local community action groups — applied for the grant money in April, when the AIS Prevention Fund was announced by the NDP.

The amount allocated under the program is nearly $400,000, Environment and Climate Change Minister Mike Moyes said on Tuesday.

“We know that working with communities is a great way to protect the waters we cherish from aquatic invasive species,” Moyes said in a news release.

While Seymour is pleased with the funds, he said there needs to be more decontamination stations in the southern part of the province.

The closest decontamination station to Ninette is Minnedosa, which is 123 kilometres away. Dauphin is a distance of 166 km. The Headingley location, about 193 km away, was closed due to construction at the weigh scales on the Trans-Canada Highway. It has been moved to St. Vital, the province told the Sun Wednesday.

“So that is an issue,” Seymour said. “The province did come out with a roving station last year and we only saw it a couple of times. But we haven’t seen that station yet this year and that was supposed to be the interim fix, but that hasn’t really fit the bill at this point. So we’re hoping to work with them to come up with something closer in the future.”

A provincial spokesman said the mobile inspection unit has been deployed this season at Lake of the Prairies. The spokesperson didn’t say whether there are plans to add another inspection station in southwestern Manitoba.

Before applying for the government grant, the RM of Prairie Lakes introduced a user pay system. Local boat owners need to purchase a $100 decal and declare that they will only use their boat on Pelican Lake for the season.

Visitors must also pay a $40 inspection fee to have their boat checked for invasive species like zebra mussels. Boaters must take their crafts to the inspection station in Ninette, which is the only boat launch that is open. Visitors can pay $5 when they leave and will get a tag that allows them to return to the lake free next time.

There has been pushback, Seymour said, from a group that claims the fees have been a money grab, which he denies.

The government funding may allow the RM the flexibility to adjust those fees, he added.

“We in no way anticipate making money on this. We just did not want to put it on our taxpayers at large. We’ve got farmers and people around the area that don’t use the lake at all. So why is it fair for them to pay for somebody from Brandon, Winnipeg, Morden to come and utilize the lake?

“So that’s why we were trying to put it on the user group, not just on the ratepayer.”

The future plan for Prairie Lakes, Seymour said, is having inspectors at other locations on the lake to make it easier for boaters — not to deter people from coming to the lake.

“If everybody was doing their part and doing things according to the government rules, we wouldn’t need to do this. But unfortunately, we’ve had to turn some boats away and send them to get decontaminated because they are coming in thinking they’re going to get on Pelican Lake,” he said.

“So had our inspectors not been there to alleviate that, those boats would have come right into the lake, and then there’s a possibility of AIS coming directly into the lake. And that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

The other recipients that received grant money under the AIS Prevention Fund are Norway House Cree Nation ($108,228), Gull Lake Basin Management Board Inc. ($95,000), the Municipality of Harrison Park ($51,000), Citizens for Protecting Our Northern Waterways Inc. ($51,000) and Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement ($2,650).

Applications for next year will open this fall.

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