lake diving permits

[jleech]

As for Washington County, Square Lake is in Washington County.  I know the web site calls it a Scuba Dive Permit, but I have to believe it's a "Permit to Teach Scuba diving" that is $100 (which it is).  I found a web page with 2003 prices on it that refers to the same $100 scuba permit for Washington County.  I have been to the county side at Square Lake dozens of times since 2003, and never have been asked for a permit.  I've even chatted with the county sheriff that patrols the parking lot.

There may be other restrictions for Lake Elmo, but I wouldn't count on it being a $100 permit.

Jeff

[NorthlandDivers]

The $100 permit for Square Lake is for Dive Stores doing their Open Water Dives at the park.  It is a commercial use permit.  It does NOT apply to divers going out there to dive.  Lake Elmo does not allow diving from the boat landing.  I was told if we wanted to dive Lake Elmo it had to be from private property or from a boat.  Doesn't make it to convenient to go there for a quick dive.  I understand the not diving from the boat launch as that could create quite a problem with the mix of boats and divers and the state law does say we can't block off a boat launch or navigational channel.  It would be nice if they worked something out for a divers entrance out of the park.  Last year when we dove it from private property the viz wasn't to bad.  This year when we dove it we had a lot more rain first and the viz was worse than Square.
Speeking of Square has anyone noticed the lack of pan fish out their this year.  We were just there on Sunday and we seen 1 bullhead that had taken up residence in the toilet platform and one small bass and a couple of small northerns but, I didn't see any pan fish.

[DiverQueen]

Buuuurpppp!!!    :  Uh, Sorry!   ;D 





Just kidding!  But some fish have cyclical life spans...And some are killed off by DNR chemical treatment.  On Crystal Lake in Robbinsdale this spring there were hundreds of dead carp on shore...Phew!  Winter kill or chemicals?

[SmithDiving]

Diving from the park this past weekend we saw lots of panfish.  I'm not sure if we just happened to be in the right place at the right time or if it's our superior buoyancy and stealth.  Still waiting to hear back from Mpls.

[NorthlandDivers]

Ok so Lee ate all the pan fish out at Square.  Either that or he had lots of good fish food with him and he became the Pied Piper of Square Lake.  Hope everyone has some plans to go diving over the 4th.

[scubadog76]

Start filling your tanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D

After having tons of calls dodged and not returned by managers of the Parks, I got through to the Superintendent, Jon Gurban, on the first  try.  I asked about the permit policy for diving and he very humbley said that he was not familiar with it at all and asked what I new of it.  He also agreed that $35.00 seemed terribly steep.  He asked what other county parks charged for a fee, if any.  I told him that the marine sanctuary in Cozumel only charged $2.00 a day.  He told me that they were having a meeting on several issues this afternoon and he would bring it up.

At 3:30, he called me back :o to say that there were 2 options:  I could go down to the Park Board and buy a scuba permit, and be the first person to ever buy a scuba permit in the history of the park board, OR I could just go dive any lake in the Minneapolis park system.  "The lakes are free to scuba dive in". He said.  He also said they were planning to overhaul there website because there are other errors too.

I told him there is probably a group of divers that would do a cleanup dive as a token of thanks and he said they would see what they could do to accomodate it-

See you in the water-Jeff

[DiverQueen]

Hey Jeff, Tanks for all your hard work and diligent phone time!  We dodged the bullet again on this issue!  Great work man!  Let me know when the Clean-Up dive is I will try to make it!  I just love finding stuff under water!  Last dive I found a full can of Sprite!  I let my son have a few sips (after cleaning it up and refrigerating it) before I told him where I got it!!!  ;D :o  You should have seen the look on his face!  Guessing it'd been there since maybe February or March during the last of Ice fishing season!

[Jolly_mon]

:o  People bring Sprite Ice fishing!  Never thought of that, I bring beer (takes longer to freeze, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it ;D )

[nellamit]

My guess is that there would have been a flask to go with the can of sprite. Too bad she didn't find that.