LAKE SUTHERLAND — Many property owners on this lake that is slowly being consumed by a pesky underwater weed are opposing a county plan to tax them for removing the weed.
Others want the per-parcel tax, saying their property values depend on the lake being healthy.
As proposed in a measure to be taken up by Clallam County commissioners next month, a lake management district would assess each property owner $50 per parcel annually.
“I don’t think it’s fair for the homeowners of Lake Sutherland to pay the cost of a problem that is actually a public resource . . . just like a road,” said Dave Weikel, president of the Mallard Cove Homeowners Association, one of several such associations on the lake shore west of Port Angeles.
Weikel said he is prepared to testify against forming the lake management district when it goes to a public hearing before the Clallam County commissioners July 27 at 10:30 a.m.
Weikel’s group of 11 homeowners on Lake Sutherland’s south shore voted unanimously Thursday night against the district and the tax.
“It’s a state property and a state resource, and I believed that if the state would have managed it, they wouldn’t have had the this problem,” said Weikel, who also is PDN technical services director.
Freshwater weed
At issue is the Eurasian milfoil, an invasive, non-native freshwater weed which grows as long as 20 feet in depths of up to 20 feet.
It chokes out native plants, reduces fishing habitat and degrades water quality, said Cathy Lucero, county weed board coordinator.
It can also get tangled up in boat propellers.
The source of the water weed is believed to be from boats and other water equipment which brought it in from elsewhere.
Since 2000, volunteers have set out in kayaks, canoes, motorboats and scuba gear to yank the feathery, aggressive milfoil from the lake bottom.
After the July 27 public hearing, the county commissioners could chose to call an election that would involve about 350 property owners inside the proposed lake management district.
