Eurasian water milfoil grows aggressively, uprooting native vegetation, disrupting aquatic habitats, and interfering with recreation. By 2013, the Commission was spending up to $250,000 per year on herbicide treatments to control approximately 300 acres of milfoil. Grants helped fund these efforts, but by the mid-2010s, funding had dwindled to around $50,000 annually.

After a decade of chemical treatment, the Commission made a bold decision to stop using herbicides altogether. The results? Within a few years, the milfoil population began rebounding. According to the aquatic ecologist who has monitored these lakes for 18 years, the plant is “too big, it’s too much” for manual removal alone, which costs roughly $2,500 per day.

The lesson is clear: eradication with herbicides is expensive, temporary, and environmentally damaging. Even if chemicals were used without regard for ecological impacts, controlling the entire population long-term is not practical.

Instead, a management-focused approach should to taken to target plants that interfere with navigation and recreation rather than attempting total eradication. Mechanical harvesting offers a solution; it doesn’t attempt to eliminate every plant but efficiently manages growth, maintains recreational access, and avoids repeated herbicide costs.

After more than a decade of observation, the evidence is in: spending hundreds of thousands of dollars chasing eradication with chemicals is far less effective than strategic, mechanical management. It’s time for a shift in mindset: toleration and control, rather than endless eradication efforts, may be the only sustainable way forward for our lakes.

Read more about the Lower Eagle River Chain of Lakes Commission’s milfoil efforts

But maintaining that beauty, and more importantly, what’s under the water, can be challenging and at times controversial.

Lake Shawnee is one such area where Eurasian watermilfoil has flourished, leading the county to use herbicides in recent years to combat the spread of the weed.

One opponent of the herbicide use believes the introduction of herbicides to Lake Shawnee in past years has been detrimental to the bass population, and said mechanical or manual removal of excess weeds would be a better option. He also said that watermilfoil helps increase fish populations in lakes, and that some of his best fishing experiences have been at lakes where the plant grows.

Read More  https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/state/2019/08/17/lake-shawnees-use-of-herbicide-to-combat-eurasian-milfoil-draws-criticism/4437712007/

The APA conducted monitoring and said the herbicide eliminated all traces of Eurasian Watermilfoil and found no significant impact on other plants, or degradation in wetlands. However, not every group tasked with caring for Lake George or the Adirondacks is convinced about ProcellaCOR EC yet.  There isn’t enough long-term evidence of the herbicide’s safety. Some factors have to be measured over a lot of time.

In some cases, other states have made their own observations about the effectiveness of ProcellaCOR EC and the drawbacks that could manifest. From a document on the herbicide’s use by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources:

“It is important to note that repeated use of herbicides with the same mode of action can lead to herbicide-resistant plants, even in aquatic plants. Certain hybrid Eurasian watermilfoil genotypes have been documented to have reduced sensitivity to aquatic herbicides. In order to reduce the risk of developing resistant genotypes, avoid using the same type of herbicides year after year, and utilize effective, integrated pest management strategies as part of any long-term control program.”

Read More https://www.news10.com/news/north-country/inside-the-herbicide-that-may-see-use-in-lake-george/

The invasive weed aggressively outgrows and outcompetes native aquatic plants. It can then clog irrigation systems and ponds, and even push out native species of fish and other aquatic life.

So far, four ponds have been treated with an aquatic herbicide to remove the Eurasian watermilfoil, but the success of the effort won’t truly be known until next growing season to see if the plant greens up.

Read More

The program started when the Eurasian Milfoil weed was so bad it was impossible for people to use some of the main public beaches on Okanagan lakes.

The milfoil rototiller literally chews up the bottom of the lake, loosening up the roots of the plants that then float to the surface. They freeze and die in the cold winter temperatures resulting in clean open beaches in the summer.

Read More https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-106218-33-.htm

The town and other municipalities in the Belgrade lakes region, along with area lake associations, have spent thousands of dollars eradicating milfoil, an invasive aquatic weed that displaces native plants and can leave lakes unsuitable for recreation. harvester harvesting

However, once the plants are out of the water, lake associations are not always sure where to put them to ensure that the plants will decompose properly without spreading back into the water.

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Primozich said according to Progressive AE, the Grand Rapids company that monitors the lake vegetation, the aquatic invasive water milfoil has now changed to the hybrid form.

“This means that it has a greater tolerance to herbicides and will require a more costly treatment than dealing with the native northern milfoil or the exotic Eurasian milfoil of the past 16 years,” Primozich said. “This appears to be a more aggressive growth pattern.”

Pentwater Lake shoreline owners (riparians) have petitioned the Pentwater Lake Improvement Board to substitute suction harvesting for the chemical treatment of floating vegetation mats for 2017.  A presentation on mechanical harvesting will be held on December 14th.

Read More

Although representatives from the state say the herbicide won’t unduly harm species other than milfoil, critics of the practice say it does harm fish, even if it works as intended.

Some of the best fishing in a lake or pond occurs at the border between milfoil and open water, said Shawn Good, a fisheries scientist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. That’s because big fish prey on juvenile fish that live within the milfoil, he said, and juvenile fish live in milfoil because it offers nutrients and protection and the other qualities that define a good fish habitat, he said.

A lake with a milfoil infestation and more than half its area free of the invasive plant still serves as a functional ecosystem. Such a lake provides much better habitat for fish than the same lake following an herbicide treatment, when the milfoil that once provided living quarters for small fish lies rotting on the bottom of the lake.

Fish can’t distinguish between native species and invasive milfoil, Good said, and they flourish in milfoil just as readily as in any other dense aquatic foliage.

When lake associations like the Lake Iroquois Association apply lake-wide herbicide, it kills off all the milfoil, leaving the fish without their accustomed habitat.

Read More

While these fishermen take to the lakes though they need to be aware that the threat of the spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS) does not go away.  Eurasian watermilfoil which is capable of living and growing under the ice while other invasive species may simply be dormant, they can easily be spread from one water body to another.

There are steps that can be taken to help prevent the spread:

• Thoroughly inspect and clean all fishing equipment, line, hooks, nets, scoops and augers after each use.
• Drain all water from equipment and containers containing fish prior to leaving the ice.
• If you are using live bait, buy it locally from a licensed bait dealer and dispose of any unused bait properly.
• Pack out your waste from the ice and dispose of it in appropriate waste containers.
• Dry all your equipment for 5 or more days or disinfect it with an appropriate disinfection solution.

Do your part to stop the spread.