The City of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has four marinas with a lot of yachts and people spending their summers on the boats. The water level in the bay is down a foot from what it was last year, and it is predicted there will be more problems with weed growth.
The city applies for a DNR permit every five years to harvest weeds, and once a year for chemical treatment. This year’s permit authorizes a single herbicide treatment for 44.35 acres of aquatic plants and remaining areas will be harvested using the city’s four aquatic weed harvesters.
In the city’s annual seaweed-harvesting report submitted to the DNR for 2021, Ryan Londo, Sturgeon Bay’s seasonal harbormaster said 371 harvester loads of seaweeds were hauled out of the bay and marinas, which was 273 more loads than in 2020, and the second-most loads since he began working for the city in 2013, when 407 loads were hauled out.