Milfoil Update

As many of you know, Amy Smagula from NH DES is managing our Milfoil for us. I received the following update from her divers recently:

The spot at the town beach was clean.  We found milfoil in two places near the outlet that had been picked on previous visits we cleaned those up.  The location that was sent in the email was then programed into a gps and we navigated to it.  On the way we discovered another patch which was cleaned up.  When we got to the GPS location we found a patch and cleaned it up.  We then found a couple of patches beyond that location and cleaned them up all of these represent new finds that we have not picked before!  We then went back to the original find (floating dock by launch) and found a few patches most of these were small plants which were probably regrowth from the last visit.

Lastly we went back to the outlet and swam into the channel.  We picked more here than anywhere else in the lake.  Many of the plants I picked were amongst heavy native plant growth with resulted in a lot of collateral when picking.  Also the substrate was surprisingly gravel which resulted in difficulty with broken roots; regrowth potential here will be high.  The last problem here is logistical; once our bags were filled we swam back to the boat in the main lake.  To continue we would have to swim back with new bags.  We elected to quit here. This area is going to be quite problematic from a diving perspective.  We could try and brainstorm some solutions for the access problem, but the hard substrate regrowth problem and the plants hidden in heavy native growth would persist.  Your call as to what to do with this area.

So…what they refer to as the channel is what we usually call the Meadow, the area on the downstream side of the Pond Rd. bridge. It is heavily infested with Milfoil as you can see on the map. We are in discussions with Amy about what to do with this area. Even though it is downstream from the main body of the lake Milfoil could come back into the lake by small boats or fishermen. Amy is considering closing off this portion of the lake to boating and fishing. She has to discuss this with Fish and Game and Marine Patrol. We will keep you posted. The BLIA continues to work aggressively on this problem. Our Weed Watchers continue to look for milfoil growth around the lake. We will have a recruitment and training session in the Spring. The more people we have looking, the better off we will be.