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Fireworks Broadcast on KZQX
104.7 Lake Cherokee, 101.9, Longview, 105.3 Kilgore, 97.9 Kilgore

Just after sunset on Saturday July 4^th, we'll be treated to the annual Lake Cherokee Fireworks Celebration. The soundtrack will be broadcast live on KZQX, 104.7 FM at Lake Cherokee. This is a great opportunity to dust off that stereo, put your speakers out on your deck or on the dock, and crank it up while we observe this year's celebration our nations' independence. It is the one time when your neighbors really won't mind hearing your music.

The music track played in the radio broadcast will be synchronized with the fireworks, which always makes for some enjoyable viewing. This year's show will run almost 25 minutes, and should be spectacular. Look for it to start sometime between 9:15 to 9:30.

Chuck Conrad, the General Manager of KZQX, who is also a Lake Cherokee stockholder, is planning to bring the radio station's portable sound system to the CWC Lake office grounds so people who want a great view can enjoy the show with full audio accompaniment. All that's required on your part is to bring your own lawn chair or blanket.

Steven Skinner's Corner Store in Lakeport underwrites this year’s radio broadcast. The next time you visit, be sure to thank them for helping make this event possible. The nonprofit radio station relies on underwriting and donations for its support. Letting sponsors know that their help is appreciated keeps the music playing all year long.

Playing "America's Original Classics." KZQX is locally owned and programmed. Everything originates in the station's studios located in Chalk Hill. There isn't another station quite like it anywhere else on Planet Earth, but hundreds of people from every corner of the world tune in every day via the Internet just to listen. It is truly something quite unique to our community. Your friends and relatives can listen too. Just visit www.kzqx.com . If music doesn't start playing with a few seconds, click on the picture of the old radio, or follow one of the links provided on the KZQX Home Page. You'll be listening in no time.

MOSQUITO CONTROL

BY Tony Martin:
We acquired our own mosquito spray rig about 8 years ago. In the beginning, I drove the rig each evening when wind and rain conditions permitted. The spraying must be done around dusk and early evening to be effective, and it does no good to spray if the wind speed is too high, or if it is raining. John T. Smith took over the duties for several years. When John T. was elected back onto the Board, he was replaced in the spray rig by Don Pinkerton. A few years after that, Don was elected to the Board. Now, Joe Reeves, another one of our shareholders, is driving and operating the spray rig for us. We are very proud of our program, often referred to as Vector Control. It was started in response to the West Nile Virus threat several years ago, and as a result, we had only one reported case of the Virus on the lake.

On much of the lake, due to prevailing summertime breezes, the spraying is most effective by driving the rig down every few driveways as close to the lake as we can get it. Most shareholders love to see the spray rig on their lot or adjacent lots, but every once in a while we find shareholders who do not want it around their place. If you do not want the spray rig around your lot, please call the lake office and we will pass your address along to Mr. Reeves.

I am not ashamed to admit that it took me two tries to pass the State Health Department course and test to obtain the license necessary for us to do the spraying here on the lake. There are a whole bunch of different species of mosquitoes around here, all with mind-boggling Latin names and their own unique breeding and feeding patterns, and the State wanted to make sure I knew all of them. This is a good time to remind you that none of them travel more than a few hundred feet from their birthplace. That means most of the mosquitoes around your house were hatched on your lot or an adjacent one. They do not come out of the lake. If there are minnows in the water, you will not find mosquitoes there. We place larvaecide in non-flowing water impoundments around the lake that prevents mosquitoes from taking wing from those. They come from standing stagnant water, from teacup size to an old boat full of water. Knotholes in trees, pots and planters, idle fountains, bird baths, grassy areas that get too much watering, etc. are good breeders. Give your lot a good inspection and eliminate the breeding spots. If you would like for someone to do a mosquito breeding survey of your lot, call me and we will arrange for someone to do that. But if we take the time to do the survey, we will expect you to implement the recommendations.

Shoot Me!! Or Mold Me! Or Paint Me!

There is so much talent out here at Lake Cherokee and we want to see it! Share your artistic talent with everyone during Homegrown Art and Photo Exhibit on Saturday, September 26. Enter your best and favorite photos from Lake Cherokee in the photo contest. Winning entries will be selected to appear in next year's Preservation Club calendar. All entries will be available for viewing during the exhibit as well as other artwork you may choose to display. Photo entries should be submitted in print, but available digitally for reproduction and should be submitted no later than Labor Day. High resolution preferred. Please contact Jan Pelton to submit your entry at 903-643-0296 or jpelton@etwisp.net .
Event sponsored by the Lake Cherokee Preservation Club.

WAR DECLARED! ENLIST NOW!

The North vs. the South in a Softball Game battle to the finish! All shareholders and privilege card holders are invited to participate (12yr age minimum). This historically significant event will be held July 25 at 9:00am at the Tatum Park Field on Hwy 43. A small entry fee will be applied toward t-shirts. No expertise require - just come out and have some fun! Please call Angela Dunlap at 903-643-7258 to recruit yourself for the game and specify your team. Please sign up to play no later than July 15.
Event sponsored by the Lake Cherokee Preservation Club.

FREEDOM SWIM 2

By Vern Staub: The second annual July 4th Freedom Swim will hit the water at 8 AM sharp on Saturday, July 4^th. Last year, more than 40 swimmers participated in the inaugural swim across the lake. The Freedom Swim is quickly becoming known as the way to kick off the action packed July 4th activities. Swimmers will meet at the lake office boat dock at 7:40 AM on Saturday morning. Escorted by lake patrol, swimmers will swim across the lake to the beach at Firecracker Park. All swimmers should arrange for their own pilot boat. No registration is required and is open to swimmers of all ages as well as hand-propelled craft, i.e. kayak and canoes. This is a shareholder activity; however, friends and family of shareholders are invited. So plan to participate or if you just want to come out and watch, the event promises to be another great reason that you are part of Lake Cherokee! If you are interested in being a pilot boat, a shuttle boat or volunteering or if you have any questions please contact Vern Staub (SQ-15) at vostaub@gmail.com.

ANNUAL BOAT PARADE

The Annual July 4th Boat Parade will be held on Saturday, July 4th at 2:00pm. So be thinking about how you want your boat or barge decoration theme to be. No registration is required. All you have to do is show up in the area east of the island at 2:00pm and join the procession in front of the judges' stand at the CWC office pier. You can follow the traditional patriotic theme or let your imagination carry you into the open theme category. We will have winners in both. There will be five judges to be announced who will rate each entry.

THE HIGH COST OF GIANT SALVINIA
CWC Board of Directors

The Longview News Journal ran a story about Giant Salvinia on Lake Caddo in the June 6, 2009 edition of the newspaper. The managing editor of the Longview News Journal, Juan Elizondo Jr. has given permission to distribute the article written by Jimmy Isaac. We appreciate their desire to educate people about the severe impact that this invasive plant can make on any waterway in East Texas.

Tony Martin, Lake Manager, has taken a proactive stance in preventing Giant Salvinia on Lake Cherokee. He has placed containment booms at each boat ramp, has each boat ramp checked on a daily basis by lake patrol or CWC employees, is developing a complete action plan if the Salvinia makes it into our waterway, and continues to update his management staff on current methods of stopping the spread of Salvinia, if the lake becomes contaminated with the plant.

We are considering placing some type of gates at each boat ramp in order to help control the launching of watercraft, which will help prevent contamination. Texas Parks and Wildlife, Louisiana Fish and Game, The City of Marshall, and independent contributions are providing funding for the harvester and herbicide at Lake Caddo. We cannot depend on state funds, grants or any other outside source of revenue to help at Lake Cherokee. The Cherokee Water Company will have to provide all of the assets and funds to kill and remove Giant Salvinia from Lake Cherokee.

The harvester now being used on Lake Caddo is not a guarantee that Salvinia will be controlled. As the harvester moves through the water, the Giant Salvinia can be cut in very small fragments and each fragment is capable of growing into a new plant. The propulsion used by the harvester may also cut up the small plants and each fragment will produce additional plants. In the original photo supplied by the Longview News Journal, you can see many, many pieces of both Giant Salvinia and Water Hyacinth floating in the foreground.

The most cost effective method to fight Giant Salvinia is prevention. Avoid lakes that have Salvinia. Closely examine your boat and trailer for vegetation when loading at other lakes. When you put your boat into any lake, take a few minutes to observe the water around your craft for floating vegetation. Salvinia will always float to the top of the water, if it is caught between the trailer runners and the boat bottom.

The following is the Longview News Journal article that was written by Journalist Jimmy Isaac.

John Sanders remembers 50 years ago when the bottom of Caddo Lake was a clean, almost sandy surface seen through clear, pristine water.

Tuesday morning, Sanders dredged up sludge from the shallow depths of Texas' largest natural lake. While he's one-half of local and state efforts to clear Caddo Lake of invasive aquatic plants, Sanders thinks the other half isn't solving the problem.

"It doesn't make any sense to me," Sanders said of the herbicide spraying efforts of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The herbicide is intended to kill giant Salvinia, a rapidly reproducing, free-floating plant that develops into giant mats and blocks necessary sunlight from the lake's floor and ecosystem. Sanders said the chemical efforts aren't long lasting.

"I'll be cleaning up the lake right after the chemical boys in about six months," he said.

Sanders, 70, is a Kansas businessman who couldn't ride a traditional boat to his Caddo Lake retirement home due to giant Salvinia mats surrounding the property. He volunteered his time this week to clearing the plant - along with water hyacinth, lilies and other vegetation - from the Tucker's Camp landing dock, where recreational boating has decreased by more than one-third in the past year.

Using a mechanical harvester, Sanders cut swaths through a patch of vegetation spanning nearly one-quarter mile. The harvester chomps the mats and loads the weeds onto a conveyor belt. Sanders carries the pile of vegetation to a waiting dump truck at the shoreline, and the truck dumps the plants in an open field about one mile from the lake.

Sanders donated his labor and use of the machine he invested some $70,000 in to renovate and transport, said Jack Canson, chairman of the Jefferson-based Caddo Lake Institute. The institute paid for some of Sanders' operating expenses, Canson said.

Timothy J. Bister, a district biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife, said the harvester proposal originated from the Jefferson-based Caddo Lake Institute. The state provided no funding for mechanical treatment, but state parks officials are funding herbicide spraying, which bonds to invasive plants and kills them before they sink to the lake bottom, he said.

One airboat can spray herbicide across 50 acres of giant Salvinia, Bister said. The harvester doesn't cover as much ground and is unable navigate through Caddo Lake's native cypress tree groves. And because Caddo's spillway prevents lowering the lake level to dry out and effectively kill the plants, there's no way to avoid dead vegetation and sludge from building up on the lake floor, he said.

"It is a part of nature," said Bister. "As soon as a lake is formed, whether naturally or manmade by putting a dam across a river, that lake begins the slow process of filling in. Over many, many years, possibly thousands of years, lakes will eventually fill in."

Aquatic Invasion

Giant Salvinia first was discovered in 2006 on the Louisiana side of the more than 25,000-acre Caddo Lake, according to Ken Shaw, chairman of the Cypress Valley Navigation District. The plant spread to Texas shortly thereafter, prompting spot herbicide spraying from small boats on the Texas side of the lake in 2007, Shaw said.

Efforts have since expanded to four airboats spraying portions of the lake over a two-week period.

Bister said the goal is to treat 1,000 acres of lake surface. "It’s not the best thing, but it is a natural process," said Bister. "And another thing, if these invasive non-native plants in Caddo weren't there, there's going to be plants one way or another. You would still have organic material stacking up on the bottom."

Marshall Mayor Buddy Power said his city donated $25,000 to the mechanical harvester project, which he hopes will control the spread of the plant before it reaches the city's water intake system.

"If encroachment continues, in about two years the intake valves will get clogged with this kind of material, which can be damaging to water quality and our machinery," said Power, watching Sanders' harvester from the Tucker's Camp shoreline. "I see there will be a need for both (mechanical and chemical treatment). I also see that I would rather have it out of the lake than laying on the bottom dead."
You may visit the Longview News Journal website at news-journal.com/news/content/news/local/index.html for more information. (Photo courtesy of Longview News Journal)

Census to Begin Address Canvassing Operations

BY Gina Moers (US Census Bureau – Dallas) The Census Bureau will be sending out address canvassers as a part of early operations. This workforce will walk or drive through neighborhoods to check that all addresses are in our database when the questionnaire is delivered in March 2010. This early operation is vital to ensuring a complete and accurate count. Many people don't realize that the Address Canvassing operation occurs as much as a year ahead of the official Census day on April 1, 2010.

Address Canvassing is the first large field operation for the 2010 Census and it is designed to identify all housing units and other living quarters. Listers will use hand held computers with maps on them to verify and list structures, including the collection of GPS coordinates for each location.

All information collected by Address Canvassers and other Census employees is kept strictly confidential and cannot be shared with any other persons, institutions, or agencies. If you have questions or concerns please contact your local census office.

SOS-SERIOUS ON SAFETY

We have three State Boater Safety Course instructors here on the lake who are certified by the Texas Parks and Wildlife. They conducted the Boater Safety Course for almost seventy adults and youngsters here at the end of May. It was the only such course offered in Texas that weekend, and attendees came from as far away as the Metroplex and included members of a Dallas scout troop. Our own Joe Travis and Dirk Lee had the high score of 99 on the final exam.

We are going to use their instructor skills by initiating our SOS program this summer. If you receive a citation and fine for unsafe boating on our lake, you will have the option of paying the fine, or burning off the fine by attending our own four hour version of the boater safety course. We will have classes over the summer on selected Saturdays. The cost will be $25, and the fine will be waived for those successfully completing the course and exam. Our SOS course will not count as attendance at the certified State Boater Safety Course, and will be specifically designed to address boater safety on Lake Cherokee.

If you receive a second safety citation, successful attendance in and completion of the class is mandatory in order to maintain your water privileges. For twice-cited persons who do not live on the lake, or do not want to attend or cannot attend our courses, you may provide us with documentation showing that you have taken the State Boater Safety Course elsewhere or on-line since your last citation in order to retain your privileges. If the twice-cited person is less than seventeen years old, the sponsoring shareholder must attend our class with him or her.

THE FIRECRACKER GRILL

By the time you read this, the Firecracker Grill will be open at Firecracker Park. Providing a food concession at the fuel center and recreation area has been discussed by the Board for a couple of years now. Gary and Janie Adams, owners of Adam's Rib in Lakeport since 1991, and shareholders since 1984, have agreed to set up their catering unit every weekend and on holidays at Firecracker Park during the summer season, with operating hours of 11am until dusk.

Those of you familiar with Adam's Rib know the excellent quality of food and service at the restaurant. The Firecracker Grill will serve much of the same choices as the main restaurant does. For those of you who do not carry cash on the water, Gary and Janie will accept credit cards. Their proposed menu is printed below.

Hot Dogs, Chili Dogs ,Hot Link Dogs, Brisket, Taco (New), Cheese Quesadilla, Hot Wings, Bologna, Sloppy Joes, Chopped or Sliced Beef Sandwiches, Turkey Sandwiches, Chili Pies, Sloppy Joe Pies (New) ,Hamburgers, Chips, Soda, Ice Tea ,Gator Ade, Water, Bag Ice

They will also prepare Family Packs. If you hire them to cater a birthday party in the park, a cake may be included.

Elderville-Lakeport
Volunteer Fire Department Inc.
8875 FM 2011 East, Longview, Texas 75603
Phone 903-643-3222     Fax 903-643-2329

Fire Alarm Information

The Elderville-Lakeport V.F.D. responded to 302 Fire Alarms in 2008, 319 Fire alarms in 2007. This reflects a small decrease in alarms in 2008. There were a total of 18 alarms on Lake Property in 2008.

Fire Safety

Please practice fire safety when cooking, Have a fire extinguisher mounted close to the kitchen. When burning outside, Please do not leave an unattended fire, if you are leaving please put it out. Check your fire-smoke alarm operation monthly.

Volunteer Fire Fighters

The Department has unfilled volunteer firefighter positions. For interested persons in volunteering call 903 643-3222. The department will sponsor an Introduction to volunteer firefighter training class for new recruits in the last week of March 2009.

Fireworks Broadcast on KZQX 104.7 Lake Cherokee, 101.9, Longview, 105.3 Kilgore, 97.9 Kilgore

Aquatic Invasion

Fireworks Broadcast on KZQX
104.7 Lake Cherokee, 101.9, Longview, 105.3 Kilgore, 97.9 Kilgore