Trending
FAIRMONT-- A three hour long Fairmont Chain of Lakes water quality workshop took place on Thursday afternoon. Multiple stakeholders were in attendance, including but not limited to city staff, city council members and representative of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Martin Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) and Fairmont Lakes Foundation (FLF). They heard presentations from a number of people representing different businesses dealing with water quality.
Nanobubble oxygenation, permitting aeration technologies, Curly Leaf Pondweed (CLP) management techniques, carp management, biological approach to the lakes and an overview of Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) projects were all discussed in the workshop which was coordinated by Fairmont's water resources coordinator, Hannah Neusch.
Chris Stephan and Jonathan Morales of Moleaer, Inc., a 10-year-old company with 10,000 installations across 56 countries, shared information about their company, which builds nanobubble generators. Stephan said they are one of the largest oxygenation companies in the world.
Speaking of the Fairmont Chain of Lakes, Morales said, "You got quite the resource here, especially with Budd Lake being a drinking water resource for the community. But why are we here? Because your lakes are hurting a little bit."
He said it is not a unique story here as a lot of lakes are facing similar issues. In fact, a slide in their presentation said that 50 percent of waterbodies globally are impaired.
They went over some lake management tools and strategies, one of which is nanobubble oxygenation. Stephan said that by adding oxygen and distributing it over a large area from a single treatment point, the anaerobic condition of the entire water column can change, and most importantly, at the bottom of the water body, at the sediment water interface, it can stop nutrient release.
"Our solution, fairly simple, is a water pump that recirculates whether it's floating on a barge, on shore, or dock mounted," Stephan said.
A slide shown explained that nanobubbles behave differently than aeration bubbles because the smaller, more stable bubbles remain suspended and disperse in water.
Stephan spoke about the importance of determining what size is needed and what installation would be best.
In addition to being permitted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Moleaer has been permitted by the Minnesota DNR in several communities already including for work on Tadd Lake and Pokegama Lake.
Stephan also spoke about Tri-Lakes in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, which he said was harvesting over one million tons of CLP a year but the water quality wasn't getting any better
"They're doing multiple things, not just oxygenation," he said.
Following their presentation, a question was asked on what risks there are to using nanobubble technology and Stephan said that due diligence on the front end is needed.
"Do the oxygen demand studies, do core sampling to understand your phosphorus release rates and look at a variety of other things that impact the treatment as a whole to really understand it."
Next, a question was asked how much a unit on Budd Lake would cost and Stephan said, "You're talking millions of dollars."
Following Moleaer's presentation, Mark Gaalswyk of Easy Environmental Solutions, Inc., based in Martin County, also spoke about his Easy NanoVoid Technology and Terreplenish, an anaerobic fertilizer, or fertilizer alternative.
In his presentation, Gaalswyk pointed out four factors that lead to a dirty lake, which include fertilizer runoff, low oxygen, anaerobic bacteria and animal waste. He spoke to the solution to those four, which he said his company is working to address.
Speaking more about Terreplenish, Gaalswyk said, "the beauty of our fertilizer alternative is that if it runs into the lake, it cleans the lake."
Then he touched on the Easy NanoVoid Technology, which he's been working on since 2012.
"There's probably a couple hundred nanobubble companies out there, probably half of them are glorified air hoses that make a little bubble," Gaalswyk said.
He also spoke about the size of the device that's needed and spoke about the various sizes his company offers, ranging from small to large.
Like Moleaer had said, Gaalswyk said that doing an ORP (oxidation-reduction potential) prior to starting will be key to the success of the technology.
In closing, Gaalswyk said his pitch to Fairmont is to "rent" a system to try it out before the city commits to purchasing a system for itself.
Following his presentation, Council Member Britney Kawecki asked him, too, how much a unit in Fairmont would cost.
He said the smallest is about $35,000 up to $700,000 for the largest one. She asked if the big unit would cover the size of Budd Lake. Gaalswyk said an option would be to start small in swimming areas to test it out rather than trying to do the whole lake right away.
Following the presentations on nanobubbles, Denise Elston, the DNR aeration program coordinator, spoke about the permitting process for such systems and technologies.
A presentation she provided said that all aerations in a public water require an aeration permit.
"How are we dealing with emerging technologies? Early last year we formed an inter-agency task force to evaluate these emerging technologies," Elston said. "We're taking a precautionary approach because of the lack of peer-reviewed data is very think and we want to make sure that there's not un-intended harm to the aquatic ecosystem, or that these don't interfere with other lake management strategies."
She added that they are only authorizing pilot project proposals and that Moleaer has worked on two of them, one before the task force was formed and one after.
In summary, Elston said that they're trying to be careful in regard to these emerging technologies.
"Just because you're authorized or permitted for the use of nanobubble technology, it's not really an endorsement. That's not our job," Elston said.
She also pointed out that since the Fairmont Chain of Lakes is a source of drinking water, there will likely be other components and departments that would need to be involved.
Elston was asked how much a permit application fee would be for Fairmont and she said that there is no cost for the permit application for the open water season.
Dr. Ryan Wersal with Minnesota State University-Mankato, who has had a grad student and other undergraduate students studying the chain of lakes through a partnership with the city, provided an update.
"My lab has been involved with this project since about 2024 when Martin SCWD got me involved to do a point intercept survey on all aquatic vegetation and we've since done some delineation surveys... and some water quality surveying," Wersal said.
He further said that CLP was delineated in May of 2025 in anticipation of a doing some sort of management. A system-wide biomass and turion monitoring has also been done over the course of 2026.
Wersal shared that they've estimated 279 acres of CLP system-wide and pointed out on a map the densest CLP growth. In George Lake, he said there's about 42 acres of CLP, about 50 percent of the lake area. In Sisseton they found 56 acres, 39 acres in Budd Lake, 108 acres in Hall and 34 acres in Amber.
"With the speed of harvesters, I don't think you're going to get 50 percent of littoral zone harvested in a season. By statute, you're limited to how much you can manage as far as vegetation management," Wersal said.
With that said, Wersal said there are not a lot of native vegetation species growing in the lakes.
After studying the lakes before and after harvesting of CLP was done, Wersal said that harvesting is not really impacting turion density to any great extent. He also said that while harvesting CLP is reducing the nuisance growth, not a lot of phosphorus is being removed from harvesting alone.
"From my perspective, we really need an integrated management plan," he said.
As for a solution, personally Wersal said he is a plan of integrated plant management.
"I think if you're going to start to whittle away at the 280 acres of Curly Leaf, I think herbicides need to be discussed. Copper Sulfate is not one of them...there are other options out there but I think that needs to be put out there. I think harvesting will fit, but we have to pick the plots that are most conducive to fit with its limitations," Wersal said.
Also on Thursday, Przemek Bajer of Carp Solutions, LLC spoke about his business, which is based in the Twin Cities but does work in communities all across the country. He spoke about the range of their services which includes developing management plans, movement tracking, creating barriers, removal strategies and more.
After speaking more about their services, Council Member Randy Lubenow asked if there are any benefits to having carp in a lake. Bajer said, to put it simply, that there are no benefits to having them in a lake as they are not native species.
It was asked how much it would cost to address the carp here, Bajer pointed out there is a chain of lakes so in addressing all of them, it would likely be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"It will take multiple years," Bajer said.
George Klug of Wilton Water Solutions and Verlyn Sneller of Terra Transitional Solutions also spoke about a comprehensive biological approach to the Fairmont Chain of Lakes and specifically addressing sludge levels.
Klug said that recently they have been assessing the efficacy of using biologics in Cedar Lake in the Faribault area.
"It's in the pathway of about 12 different residents who over the years have found it literally impossible to get their pontoons out onto the lakes. These people are older and they remember when they used to go water skiing around the bay and now the water is only about a foot-and-a-half deep with four foot of muck," Klug said.
Speaking to Fairmont's Chain of Lakes, Sneller pointed out that there's residential and farm land in the area and he commended the city and the measures it is currently taking to start reducing issues with runoff.
"Unfortunately, runoff not only comes from farmland but residential as well, as you all know," Sneller said. "The other thing, is the amount of erosion that takes place."
He spoke about the problems that lie at the bottom of almost every lake and pond and he said they treat hundreds of lakes every year and that they're treating some in Minnesota with one to five feet of sludge.
"We're putting pucks in there and increasing clarity and we're trying to get rid of that sludge," Sneller said.
Finally, they spoke about their proposed comprehensive biological approach to the Fairmont Chain of Lakes which includes working with farmers and farmground by providing them with an alternative to the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applications.