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| Lakes volunteers employ new weapon against milfoil |
| By Michael Daniels |
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| Jim Chandler, descending to milfoil in Shagg Pond.
Photo by Michael Daniels
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“It looked like a bunch of green guts in the water,” said Peter Lowell.
Lowell, of the Bridgton-based Lakes Environmental Association (LEA), was describing a Songo River infestation of variable milfoil, an invasive water plant.
Sunday morning, in the remote northern corner of Woodstock, volunteers from the Community Lakes Association began sucking in more than two tons of those green guts, in this case from the shallows of Shagg Pond.
They were able to do so because the CLA opted this year to rent a specially equipped pontoon boat from LEA.
The craft comes with a 28-horsepower “suction harvester,” and is crewed, in part, by LEA volunteers experienced in such operations.
Lake Christopher
and Shagg Pond infected
Once introduced into a body of water, variable-leaf milfoil can spread rapidly, forming thick colonies that absorb nutrients, air and other valuable resources native plants depend upon.
The milfoil can also impact recreation activities, even lower shorefront property values.
To date the only water bodies in the CLA’s area known to be infected with variable milfoil are Shagg Pond and Lake Christopher in Bryant Pond.
The Lake Christopher milfoil was found in 2002, Shagg Pond’s the following year (but the Shagg Pond milfoil is believed to have been there for several years prior to its discovery).
Maine law does not allow for the use of chemicals to destroy milfoil, and until the arrival of the pontoon boat upon the scene, the only effective ways to contain milfoil were to either hand pull it, or cover it with large tarp-like mats that essentially suffocate it.
Hand pulling milfoil is a tedious and time-consuming process.
A SCUBA diver on the pond floor must pull each milfoil plant and its root ball individually, while constantly being careful not to break off any pieces — since it takes as little as a quarter inch of milfoil to start a new plant, even a new colony of plants.
The plant material is then placed in a bag, and when that is full, it is hauled to surface by a tender in a boat overhead.
The tender then sends down a new bag, and the process begins all over.
In a good day of hand pulling a team could expect to haul out around 300 pounds of milfoil, said Jim Chandler of Woodstock, one of two divers in this week’s effort.
Now, using the suction harvester, he said, the team has been able to haul out twice that amount.
But it’s still demanding work, requiring a diver on the bottom for long hours, gathering the milfoil, and a crew in the boat above bagging it.
The LEA’s Lowell describes the harvesting process as follows:
“The pump creates the suction and the suction provides the vacuuming power to a four-inch hose the diver carries.
“The diver can then put the hose in one hand and feed the plants and root balls into the hose with the other hand,” Lowell said, but caution and thoroughness are still the order of the day.
“You have to totally remove the root system or you have the potential of the plant growing back. “When the water containing the plants and the root balls comes up on the boat, it’s shot out into a long sluiceway and [the plant material] is diverted into different bags along the sluiceway path.
“Ultimately, the plants get composted well away from the water body,” Lowell said. “It seems to be a great solution.”
Old hands grow weary
But while the suction harvester is no doubt a powerful new tool for the milfoil-control effort, some of the stalwarts in the local effort are themselves beginning to suck a little wind.
It was Chandler who found the milfoil in Lake Christopher seven years ago, as he was leading a class of teachers studying aquatic plant life.
The discovery was a surprise — he was expecting to show the teachers bladderwort, “kind of a fun plant, that’s carnivorous and eats bugs.”
At CLA’s annual meeting earlier this month, Chandler described the encounter:
“I thought: ‘I’ll take [the class] over to the cove and show them some bladderwort, because I can tell that story.’ And then we started to see milfoil, and identified it as milfoil, and my life changed.”
He has since committed countless hours of personal time to the milfoil-control effort, as has Jen Chase of Woodstock, his partner in the effort for the past three years.
And at this point, he told the association members, “We’re both getting a little tired. … We keep knocking it back, but it’s a formidable task.”
Nancy Willard, CLA’s president, agrees.
“The seven years of effort against milfoil has been discouraging,” she conceded.
“There is hope, however, that renting the barge and vigorously attacking the weed in Shagg will put us ahead.”
Still, she said, “More time needs to be spent in Pumping Station Cove in Christopher (which is too shallow for the barge) to show any progress there.”
Willard also says it’s time for some younger energy and muscle to pitch in.
The CLA is now forming a committee to see how they might grow and rejuvenate the volunteer pool for the milfoil-control effort, Willard said.
But there is also something everyone who enjoys the lakes can do — now.
“The lakes association strongly recommends that anyone concerned about their pond or lake learn to identify invasive weeds and inspect the whole shoreline frequently during the season,” she said.
And above all, if you do find a suspicious weed, under no circumstances pull it — which, if it is milfoil, can further its spread.
Instead, call Chandler at: 665-2264 or Willard 665-2788.
Chandler seconds that: “We really need the vigilance of everyone’s eyes to help us identify plants ahead of time — and we don’t even mind false alarms.’
For more on milfoil
www.mainelakes.org/milfoil_songo_locks.htm (part two)
www.downeast.com/node/11815
www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/2530.htm
www.maine.gov/dep/blwq/topic/invasives/index.htm. |
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