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More Invasives than Leafy Plants in Maine Lakes

March 04, 2010 - LEWISTON -- Beating invasive milfoil in Maine lakes is proving to be difficult enough. The number of infected lakes continues to slowly rise. It isn’t just milfoil. Now the dreaded invasive plant, hydrilla, has shown up in a second Maine water body, and European water milfoil has put in an appearance.


Yes, variable-leaf and Eurasian milfoil are an acknowledged threat. In response, half a million dollars in federal funds will capitalize studies in seven Maine lakes this year (including Thompson Lake and Sebago in this area). That money buttresses ongoing prevention, identification and eradication efforts like the ones area lake associations on Little Sebago and on the Songo River have been fighting for several years now.


State milfoil stickers have raised revenue to help local efforts, directed by the Department of Environmental Protection, but the battles have been fought on the ground and in the water by regional groups like the Lakes Environmental Association, a state leader in Maine’s war against invasive water plants. Extending milfoil registration stickers to canoes and kayaks has become a “sticky proposition,” but lake advocates still may want to push that battle forward.


Clearly, resources are needed beyond the local efforts. Even the Bridgton-based LEA had to dip into its reserves to fight invasives this past year--and the problem isn’t going away, not even if available reserves do.


There are other kinds of invasive species to worry about, too, as sportsman George Smith reminded the 2010 Milfoil Summit at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn campus last Friday. Many of those invasive species aren’t green. Some of them (bass, say) may even be regarded as good, when they become fighting sportfish; but the clearly harmful kind--Asian mussels, alewives, moray eels, et al--can be just as destructive to the ecosystem (if not quite as harmful to property values), Smith noted. He seemed to be lobbying for a seat at the invasives funding table, noting that stretched out in need are other Maine hands--and paws, and hooves--beyond those reaching from suction harvesting boats.


For one thing, Smith was concerned how much time the wardens must spend on monitoring and enforcing milfoil laws. While only a couple of actual citations went out last year from the Maine Warden Service, that number is expected to grow, now that the facts of the situation, and the knowledge of the state law, have infiltrated the consciousness of outdoorsmen. Smith noted that sportsmen’s licenses and fees, essentially fund the understaffed warden department.


In 2009, game wardens checked 20,818 boats for compliance. There are only 125 wardens in the field--and when you’re talking Maine, that’s a mighty big field. But milfoil stickers have also contributed $3.5 million to the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, over the program’s first eight years, milfoil fighters noted. Lt. Warden Adam Gormely emphasized, however, “We are still in that environment where education is going to be a big piece.”


George Smith said his sportsman’s group is concerned about plants harming or ruining fisheries, too. But Maine faces other issues, he noted, like the 300 lakes and pond now home to aggressive, trout-and salmon-trumping pike. Even small-mouth and large-mouth bass are not native to Maine waters, he observed.


“We are surrounded by non-native and invasive species--including some of us,” the puckish Sportmen’s Alliance of Maine president told last week’s conference. “Some of this is good. But some of the rest can lead to ruin. What to do about it is a million dollar question that will not be answered by a million dollar milfoil fund.”


Jackie Bailey explained how the first $500,000 fund will be expended this year. About 60% will go to monitoring and eradication on seven Maine lakes and ponds. (More ponds may be added next year.) The studies will pin down the effect of variable-leaf milfoil on Maine lakes and ponds, studying the effects on local ecology and native plants and fish. Best practices will be determined and tried; these evaluations will include the fairly successful but volunteer-intensive tasks of hand-harvesting, laying bottom barriers and suction harvesting. These methods tend to be a delaying tactic that must be kept up with, year after year, too. The nuclear option is never far from people’s minds. Last Friday, Naples and Peabody Pond resident Larry Anton asked the experts about herbicides. Herbicide use is still low on the Department of Environmental Protection’s list of options, but the leader of a Lake Champlain protection group noted that two chemicals have been okayed for certain applications in Vermont, which only first faced milfoil in 2008.


Part of the milfoil fund money will go toward science done through St. Joseph’s College in Windham. There will be statewide workshops and a multi-state invasives conference, too. A database will be developed, as well, and anyone interested will be able to join an online Yahoo group formed around the statewide milfoil study.


The LEA’s Peter Lowell, who received a large ovation at this year’s conference for his hosting the affair and his statewide leadership, said only 25% of those along this region’s 37 lakes belong to his group. More people have to join lakes associations, if they are to keep up with the invasives. Other options, perhaps some fee for docks, also have to be added to the mix. The federal million-dollar milfoil fund will not directly help more than 6,000 Maine lakes--and they are all in the bullseye for invasives.


Congress of Lakes Association’s Maggie Shannon summed up the saga of the battle of man-against-plant--and perhaps the potential and actual tensions pitting man-against-man in the invasive species funding fights--with this comment: “Collaboration is the name of the game. We can’t protect our lakes unless we get everybody at the table.”


“Everybody,” if George Smith can get his voice heard, may included the pike and the bass and the next wave of invasive snails. Better bring a Bounty towel to that table, and maybe a referee. Dollars are scarce. Invasives aren’t.


by Mike Corrigan, March 4. 2010, Bridgton News

Lakes: Thompson Lake
Regions: Sebago


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