Carraízo reservoir in Puerto Rico has fallen victim to two of the world’s most invasive aquatic plants: water lettuce and water hyacinth. Often found together, the invasive plants grow at exponential rates, obstruct waterways, clog hydropower plants, and prevent sunlight from penetrating the water’s surface, reducing water quality. The Aqueduct and Sewer Authority began its
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.
Introduced aquatic weed clogs many of New Zealand’s waterways. It affects aquatic life and prohibits access and use for recreational users. Lakeweed Harvesters remove the aquatic plants mechanically, using a harvester mounted on a three metre by seven metre pontoon vessel. The operation works under strict standard operating procedures to ensure maximum weed is harvested
Floating weed harvesters have opened passages through Dane County Wisconsin’s dense tangles of underwater plants for about 50 years. The barges wield rotating cutting bars like those on farm combines to cut a submerged crop that is fertilized too well by runoff of nutrients like dairy manure. Each spring, the county launches a flotilla of
It is exhausting reading about lake after lake after lake becoming infested with an over abundance of aquatic vegetation. This plant material not only negatively affects water quality, the health of the fishery, recreation, aesthetics, but it is financially devastating as well. It affects tourism; bait shops, marinas, hotels, restaurants. It affects lake property owners;
Unlike using chemicals, or doing nothing at all, the advantages of harvesting include: – Immediate relief from nuisance plants that interfere with navigation and recreation – Immediate use of the water for swimming or irrigation – There is nothing foreign introduced to the environment when using mechanical control – Biomass is removed from the water
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