As we mentioned last month, this year has seen significant improvements in the water quality at Devil's Lake. Notably, the Water Improvement District didn’t run the harvester this season—it never even made it to the lake. Another month has passed, and it’s still hard to find any traces of elodea. A few small patches of milfoil have appeared near the river end, but in place of elodea, we’ve mostly seen the propagation of Vallisneria and a couple of algae blooms this summer. Thankfully, none of these resulted in toxic water conditions.

Vallisneria (also known as eelgrass) has become the dominant plant this year, replacing elodea. Vallisneria grows relatively low and, for the most part, doesn't interfere with navigation or recreational activities. It typically thrives in water between 2 and 18 inches deep. Right now, it’s shedding, and if you live on the windward side of the lake, you might notice debris piling up along your shoreline. However, compared to the previous two years, the amount vegetative matter is much more manageable.

The Devil's Lake Water Improvement District’s goal is to maintain 20% of the lake with healthy vegetation, and Vallisneria might be a good candidate for that balance. Since it’s the dominant plant this year, we are including a more detailed article entitled "Understanding Vallesneria for your review. Overall, this is great news, and we hope to see similar results next year.