Hi there! My name is Dan Kelly and I live on the north shore of Crystal Lake. I'm an avid swimmer, free diver and I also sail vintage Hobie Cats. I spent all my childhood summers on Crystal Lake and I've been a resident of Benzie County since the 90s. Lately, I've been working on rebooting the family farm.
In late June of 2020, I heard about a proposal to control invasive Eurasian Milfoil in Crystal Lake using herbicides from my cousin Shannon, whose family also owns a cottage on the north shore. Just weeks before, Bayer / Monsanto agreed to pay 10 billion dollars to settle cancer lawsuits surrounding Round Up, an herbicide that both Monsanto and the EPA claimed was safe when used as directed. The herbicides proposed for Crystal Lake, Triclopyr and/or 2,4-D, also raise significant health concerns.
Most folks I spoke with had no idea about the herbicide proposal, even though Crystal Lake and Watershed Association had attempted to inform the public of their plan years prior.
I and other property owners advocated for alternate strategies to stop the invasive. Though the herbicide plan was paused during the summer of 2020, the CLWA went ahead with two herbicide applications in the summer of 2021. The CLWA has consistently disparaged and disregarded non toxic alternatives.
I invite you to help stop the herbicide applications for good.
CLWA has had wonderful success with their healthy and safe approach to swimmers itch, back when Joel Buzzell was president. Unfortunately, the current board of CLWA is dismissing concerns of property owners around Crystal Lake and within the watershed. The sad history of CLWA's arrogance is summarized in my Benzie Record Patriot letter to the editor of 08-11-21.
The last thing I wanted was to make this personal. Based on available science and the experience of other lake associations, I and plenty of other riparians feel herbicides are a bad idea. Shouldn't our lake association be responsive to the folks who live on Crystal Lake?
My takeaway... we shouldn't abdicate our responsibility for the environment or our health to organizations or experts. Maybe there's a way to connect EVERYONE who loves Crystal Lake, to get their opinions and provide diverse information so that general agreement can be reached about our shared waters. I'd like to help create that connection, maybe this web site is a start 🙂
Several of us are working to get the word out in our spare time, without a budget. If you see grammar or spelling errors, let us know. If you'd like to help, get in touch. We're also looking for high resolution scans of vintage Crystal Lake photos. If you've got some old lake fun photos that you don't mind sharing, we'd love to borrow them!
Here's an older FAQ that provides a slightly repetitive but deeper dive into my perspective.