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Not Out of Woods, but LEA Winning Milfoil Battle

September 17, 2008 - HARRISON -- It's taken six years in well over $100,000 -- and they're not out of the woods yet -- but it looks like the Lakes Environmental Association is winning the battle against milfoil in the Songo River and Brandy Pond.


That's the word from Peter Lowell, LEA executive director, who addressed members at the organization's annual meeting last week at Camp Owatonna.


"We have the people, the programs and we have the technology -- or if we don't we'll invent it -- to keep these lakes clean," Lowell told the gathering of over 100 members.


LEA is more organized, has more programs, more volunteers and more staffing than ever before, he said, which makes it possible to take on such a comprehensive project as the Brandy Pond/Songo River milfoil eradication program.


"For me, in 30 years, this has been both the easiest and the most productive year we've ever had" as an organization, Lowell said. Revenues are down 10% from 2008 projections, however, and he called on members to recruit their neighbors as new members to strengthen its financial support.


It took $115,000 over the last three years to remove milfoil threatening Brandy Pond from the Songo River, which empties into it. Of that total, only $15,000 of that came from the state's milfoil sticker program. The rest came from the pockets of LEA members and grant money from such organizations as the Libra foundation, which has funded global positioning system equipment and the S.S. Libra, a new section harvester.


LEA and other lake groups have been putting increasing pressure on the state to allow more money from the program to be used for milfoil investigation, and "it's pretty clear that the tables are going to turn and the money is going to flow" now that the success of such methods has been proven, Lowell told the group.


Dr. Daniel Buckley saw the proof firsthand this summer, when he spent the day on the Songo River above the locks to observe the milfoil infestation he documented with GPS equipment in 2006.


In a milfoil update passed around to members, Buckley is quoted in an August e-mail: "I was happily surprised to find over 99% of the infestation that we have seen in 2006 was gone. Your efforts and those of your abatement crew have worked wonders."


Lowell said milfoil crews follow Buckley's lead in using GPS and navigation to map the infestations. He joked that the effort took on the feel of a search and destroy mission when a new site was identified. "We'd get in our helicopter" to go destroy the plant, he said.


With Brandy Pond experiencing expanding infestations and Long Lake seriously threatened, it was crucial that both lakes be comprehensively checked, the update said.


"LEA staff and volunteers scoured marinas, shorelines and coves on July 8. Shawn Mason of Songo Cove has alerted LEA to what he thought was milfoil in the marina area. A new infestation of mature milfoil plants from two to four feet long was found."


Until then, that end of Brandy Pond had been clean. LEA removed the plants and is monitoring the cove. In all, a total of 26 milfoil infestations were removed this summer in Brandy Pond and the Songo River.


In 2007 LEA began its third season of plant control work on the Songo River and Brandy Pond with a seasoned crew, the section harvester and experimental bottom barrier materials.


"Causeway Marina looked clean by the middle of the summer after three years of work," the update said. But the crew discovered several new patches of plants in Brandy Pond -- and one was right at the Route 302 bridge within 50 feet of Long Lake. Five or six sites were found along the boat channel leading to the open lake, and other small patches were found at Moose Landing Marina and Naples Marina.


"All these patches were hand-pulled, but later in the fall, Naples Marina reported two patches, each about 12 feet square, 100 feet off the dark system. Attacking the plants meant we had to unpack all of our equipment and reactivate staff. No one looked forward to jumping into the cold water, but we were able to cover most of the plants with small tarps," the update said.


Lowell said in a later interview, that the past three years of intensive effort has paid off nicely, but that, "to absolutely eradicate these plants is very, very difficult," especially once they get any kind of foothold. It may not even be possible to totally eradicate the plants, he added.


"We're in to it forever."



This article first appeared in the Bridgton News, September 4, 2008


Lakes: Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


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