Aquatic herbicides, including chemicals like glyphosate, are commonly used to control invasive plants, but they can harm ecosystems, wildlife, and water quality. Learn about the risks and alternatives for managing aquatic vegetation safely.
The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that the endocrine-disrupting pesticide atrazine and cancer-linked pesticide glyphosate are each likely to harm more than 1,000 of the nation’s most endangered plants and animals. These chemical poisons are causing severe harm to imperiled wildlife since U.S. use exceeds 70 million pounds of atrazine and 300 million pounds of
Lake managers might be hurting native aquatic plants – instead of helping them – when they use chemicals to control invasive plants on entire lakes. New research by Wisconsin DNR Lakes and River Team Leader Dr. Alison Mikulyuk shows native plant communities can struggle when chemicals are used to target invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. It appears
Environmentalists and activists from the city on Pune, India have urged the Central Pollution Control Board and Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to ban the use of glyphosate for use on water hyacinth in water bodies due to its dangerous impact on human health and aquatic life. Glyphosate has been linked to probable carcinogenicity, endocrine disruption,
In July, the last known patches of Giant Salvinia, an invasive and aggressive aquatic plant at the Barnett Reservoir in Mississippi, were eliminated. The vegetation was treated with multiple chemicals and then removed, but after six months of Giant Salvinia being absent from the lake, the cleanup team discovered the unwelcomed guest. Apparently a stray
More than 25 years ago, biologists in Arkansas began to report dozens of bald eagles paralyzed, convulsing, or dead. Their brains were pocked with lesions never seen before in eagles. Birds were dying at lakes and reservoirs throughout the southeast, and at every lake Susan Wilde, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Georgia, Athens
In order to stop the destruction of infrastructure by aquatic invasive species, USACE and its partners are using three methods of management: biological, mechanical, and chemical. Each process varies in its effectiveness depending on the species of aquatic plant being treated – leaving the team to rely heavily on data to determine the best method
Some shoreline residents of Duck Lake, Michigan aren’t keen on the continued use of chemicals to treat invasive aquatic plants for fear of unintended consequences. Green Lake Township has for years collected a special assessment tax to pay for Eurasian watermilfoil treatments in Duck Lake, an effort to keep the species’s signature mats of floating
The Massachusetts’s Department of Conservation and Recreation is aiming to reduce invasive plant species in Lake Whitehall in a plan that calls for herbicides and mechanical harvesting. The reservoir has extensive growth of “exotic nuisance aquatic vegetation,” including fanwort and variable-leaf milfoil, according to a report by ESS Group, a firmed hired by the state.
New research out of McGill University in Montreal suggests there is cause for concern regarding the effects of the herbicide glyphosate being sprayed on land near waterways. The new studies found glyphosate puts freshwater ecosystems at risk even when its application meets approved guidelines. “And what we found is … glyphosate concentrations as low as
Imidacloprid is the world’s most popular pesticide, and highly controversial. It belongs to a family of neurotoxins, neonicotinoids, that is increasingly being blamed for colony collapse disorder—the sharp die-off of honeybees that has plagued North America since 2006. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Audubon Society, and the