This October held the 2025 annual joint meeting of the Lake George Improvement District and Lake George Conservation Club. Members, as well as representatives from ACD, MNDNR, and Lake Restorations Inc., gathered to discuss lake water quality monitoring, aquatic vegetation management efforts, and cost-share opportunities for shoreline enhancement. A couple of highlights from this year include:

• Curly leaf pondweed, a prolific invasive plant, has been almost non-existent in vegetation surveys in recent years. A few plants were found in mid-summer 2025, so management of this plant, along with Eurasian watermilfoil, will continue.
• The native plant community remains robust, with some species of native pondweeds transitioning from non-existent in 2018 to prevalent in 2025, according to the MNDNR vegetation survey data.
• New lakeshore cost-share opportunities will be available next year. Outreach will begin this coming winter or spring. The goal of these projects is to mitigate shoreline erosion using bioengineering practices with rock only as needed.

A third proposal for habitat enhancement in the Rum River Corridor was selected for funding by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. Numerous project partners plan to use these Legacy Amendment funds to enhance 27 acres of wildlife habitat and almost a quarter mile of streambank and fish habitat from the Rum's beginnings at Lake Mille Lacs to the Rum's confluence with the Mississippi River in the City of Anoka. State funds from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, part of the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment, will total $1,356,000, with an additional $150,000 in matching funds provided by partner organizations. The grant period is five years from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2030. 

The Rum River Corridor is critical for habitat and species richness for Species in Greatest Conservation Need, including Blanding's Turtle and two native mussel species. It is also part of the Wildlife Action Network in Minnesota's Wildlife Action Plan. Phase 3 builds upon the successful implementation of Phase 1 and the ongoing enhancements to the Rum River habitat in Phase 2. The partnership has expanded to address this critical and valuable wildlife corridor as a whole, extending beyond the borders of Anoka County, where Phase 1 began.

For more information, check out the links below or contact Jared Wagner, Water Resource Specialist, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment
Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council

Outdoor Heritage Fund 

Flowing water eats away at the soil on the lower bank along the outside curves of rivers. The water is piled against the outside of the curve as the river bends, similar to the sensation of being pushed to the outside of a fast-turning car. This flowing water scours material away, causing the bank to collapse. A common and effective method of preventing erosion is to armor the bank with a robust layer of material that cannot easily be moved or washed away by the current, such as rock. This results in a bank armored against erosion, but it does not allow vegetation to flourish on the part of the bank covered in rock. It also doesn't help dissipate the energy of that flowing water, which can then be exacerbated downstream. It often requires the entire armored length to be clear-cut and graded. 

An alternative to armoring is to redirect the river's flow from the outer bank, thereby preventing scour through deflection. An effective way to do this is to angle rock barbs or weirs upstream into the channel. This forces the water to flow around and over at a perpendicular angle. This pushes the main flow back towards the center of the stream rather than along the outer bank. Often, a deep pool is made just off the end of the weir towards the center of the channel. This causes variable flows and depths within the channel that fish and other organisms like. ACD has recently implemented bendway weirs and plans to install more in the near future. For more information contact Jared Wagner, Water Resource Specialist, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

An early thaw and record-breaking warmth have turned the typical spring emergence of ticks into an explosion of them. Anoka County is a high-risk area for tick born disease according to the MN Dept. of Health. The two primary types of ticks Minnesotans are likely to pick up afield are American dog (wood) ticks and Blacklegged (deer) ticks. While wood ticks can transmit disease to humans, it is rare. Blacklegged ticks (or deer ticks) however, carry a bevy of diseases transmittable to humans. Some of these diseases can cause lifelong illness and suffering. Luckily, there are some easy strategies to implement while outdoors to reduce your chances of being bitten and infected: 

1. Treat clothing with Permethrin. Unlike typical "bug spray", permethrin is used to treat clothing before going outdoors. It should not be applied to the skin. Permethrin is the most effective deterrent against ticks, and it also keeps mosquitoes and flies away.

2. Wear long pants, sleeves, and boots. Tuck your pants into your socks and shirts into your pants to reduce openings to your skin. Light colored clothing makes ticks easier to see.

ACD has been busy stabilizing severely eroded riverbanks along the Rum River to reduce the load of sediment and nutrients entering the river and to enhance the habitat of the Rum. A large initiative utilizing phases of grant funding from the Clean Water Land and Legacy amendment kicked off after a 2017 erosion inventory highlighted just how much need there was along the Rum River. To date, this initiative has garnered significant local investment beyond the competitive state grant dollars from Anoka County, the Upper and Lower Rum River WMOs, the Cities of Anoka and St. Francis, ACD, and numerous property owners. In 2024, we substantially completed construction for Phase 1 of funding from two competitive state grant sources; the Clean Water Fund (CWF), and the Outdoor Heritage Fund (OHF). 

With these funds, along with local match dollars from the all the sources mentioned, we successfully installed the following in 2024:

• 405-feet of articulated concrete toe to normal water levels, with low rock riprap armoring to the two-year flood elevation along some of the highest, steepest, and deepest erosion on the river in Oak Grove (CWF grant funds).
• 115-feet of supplemental rock toe around 40-foot tall bank with toe erosion, susceptible to critical failure in the near future in Oak Grove (OHF grant funds).
• 415-feet of rock toe armoring to a two-year flood elevation with upper banks graded and seeded with native vegetation in Oak Grove, (OHF grant funds). Bank heights ranged from 12-feet to 20-feet with a shear vertical eroded face.
• 400-feet of rock toe armoring to a two-year flood elevation with 225-feet of vegetated reinforced soil slope, and 175-feet of graded upper bank, all of which was seeded to native vegetation in Anoka (OHF grant funds). This bank was approximately 10-feet in height with a paved walking trail actively falling into the river.
• 200-feet of cedar revetment along moderate toe erosion at the Anoka Nature Preserve in Anoka (OHF grant funds). A 550-foot stretch immediately upstream of this segment is planned for a bioengineering project in 2025.