An explosion of water chestnut is starting to choke the Sudbury River in Massachusetts to the point it’s nearly impossible to take a boat out.
The Sudbury River in Framingham is just one spot in MetroWest and the Milford area under attack by aquatic weeds – invasive plants that experts say are changing the landscape, harming ecosystems and making it tough to enjoy recreational activities.
While water chestnuts plague the Sudbury, Assabet and Concord Rivers, Eurasian watermilfoil is thriving in some other local water bodies. Milford spends about $10,000 a year to have a contractor treat Louisa Lake with an aquatic herbicide and Westborough has used the same technique, but don’t see an end to the problem in sight.
The herbicide treatment in late spring wipes out the milfoil, but come fall it has grown back. Wayland’s Heard Pond aquatic plant harvester has made a huge difference over the past 10 years. In 2003, crews pulled 1.2 million pounds of water chestnut from the pond and over the years the haul has drastically dropped to 240 pounds collected in 2013.