Dauphin Lake is facing a health crisis, but it just might make it through the challenging time with a little help from its friends.

A group, Friends of Dauphin Lake, has been formed to address health and vitality issues facing the water body with an eye to ensuring its future as a residential area and tourist destination.

The immediate problem, says group member and long-time advocate Bill Griffin, is weed overgrowth threatening the future of the lake’s south basin.

“The lake is dying and way back when I was chairman of the Lake Advisory Board in the 1990s, I said the south end of the lake will be a marsh within 25 to 30 years and everybody laughed at me,” Griffin said. “We’ve had weeds the last three, four, five years and then this year they just went nuts with low water, high temperatures, lots of new sediment in front of the Dauphin Beach area this year. You couldn’t use a boat, you couldn’t get out with a boat, couldn’t water-ski, you couldn’t whatever.”

Griffin added the weed beds present in recreational areas are more than inconvenient, they are a safety concern.

Read the full story in this week's Dauphin Herald.