The Vancouver Lake watershed plan now being evaluated by the Department of Ecology is a very shallow and one-sided plan that does not include the needs of all stakeholders.
Rowers and boaters have dominated this process at the expense of fishing and swimming. Rowers and boaters have conned local philanthropists and governments into contributing money for weed control targets that are ever changing while blue-green algal blooms have become larger, longer lasting and appeared earlier and later than ever before.
One of the regulators to blue-green algal blooms is macro invertebrates which require habitat such as aquatic plants. We have correlation backed by science that this habitat is important to both swim ability and fisheries. We need a plan for the management based on science, and that includes all stakeholders. For this to be sustainable it must include management of all contributing watersheds.
I worked on such a plan for 11 years with the Vancouver Lake Partners and this was abandoned largely because of opposition from the building industry.
