Taking a break from suction harvesting, the dive crew enjoys lunch by the lake.
From left to right: A.J., Tony, Leon, Amber, and Toby
Archive for July, 2009
Even the divers have to eat lunch
Thursday, July 30th, 2009Milfoil at ‘tipping point’ in Lake Fairlee
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009More news coverage of our July 23rd meeting
by Lillian Gahagan, Journal Opinion
WEST FAIRLEE—A group of about 50 people turned out for an informational meeting at Horizons Day Camp on the evening of July 23 to discuss strategy and options for controlling an invasive weed in the waters of Lake Fairlee. The 457-acre lake is spread out across the towns of Fairlee, West Fairlee and Thetford. Eurasian milfoil, a non-native weed, has reached a “moderate” level of infestation there on a scale used by the state that goes from light to moderate to heavy.
Lakeshore users and homeowners are now contemplating what to do next since the milfoil is growing faster than it can be removed using manual and mechanical means. It is estimated that milfoil affects between 10% and 20% of the lake. Milfoil spreads by seeding itself, through root propagation and by fragmentation such as when boats churn through the weeds. The harvesting operation itself spreads the weeds, but the association has continued to remove as much as possible this way. Ten to 15% of the milfoil is removed each season, according to a fact sheet distributed at the meeting, but lake temperature, sunlight and phosphate levels all contribute to the weed’s growth.
The chair of the Lake Fairlee Association, Skip Brown, moderated the meeting that brought together representatives from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources’ Department of Environmental Conservation, divers who have been pulling the milfoil from the lake, people who have coordinated the treatment of milfoil in neighboring Lake Morey and others from the area who have a connection to Lake Fairlee. Brown assured the group that no decision had been yet been made about what to do and he did not expect the group to arrive at an outcome at that meeting.
“Everyone here has a love for Lake Fairlee,” said Brown in his introduction of the various parties present. He said as chair of the Lake Fairlee Association, he had the “dubious honor” of running the current milfoil program for the lake. The meeting was held to provide an opportunity to hear from everybody concerned about the lake and to try to build a consensus about what to do in the future. To date, there has been a “no chemical” approach to treatment.
Brown described the status of Lake Fairlee as at a “tipping point” with the weed infestation as current efforts to control the milfoil are not enough. The milfoil grows in waters up to about 15 feet in depth, when severe, can form dense mats at the surface that “umbrella” out, making boating and swimming extremely difficult as the tangle of weeds becomes impassable.
(more…)
Newspaper coverage of our milfoil dilemma
Monday, July 27th, 2009
The lead headline in today’s Valley News was, “Is it time to turn to herbicide?” Following was a well written article explaining our situation. It was prompted, we believe, by the buzz about our Informational Meeting.
You can read the whole article HERE.
(Okay, we shared the top billing with the Iraqi Kurd Elections)
Information Requested at our July 21 Meeting
Friday, July 24th, 2009I will post a summary of the meeting and the topics discussed soon. If you were not there, you should know that about sixty lake residents and users attended, and that we had a spirited discussion about the future of Lake Fairlee.
The experts from the State were able to answer many questions in summary fashion. But the issues are complex, and the information often inconclusive. As promised, we are making some of the original data available on this blog, so that those interested can form their own conclusions.
Lake Quality – Lay Monitoring Data For 30 years volunteers have measured phosphates and underwater visibility several times each summer in the lake.
- Raw annual data for Lake Fairlee may be found HERE
- A so called “Summary Report” for Lake Fairlee can be found: HERE
There is a “key” which will help in its understanding: HERE
Triclopyr – the herbicide used in Lake Morey. Look in these articles for citations to the original scientific research.
- Triclopyr Questions and Answers. LINK These questions were submitted by the public, and answered by a team of experts for the Washington State Department of Ecology. This 12 page document is an excellent good starting place.
- A summary LINK from EXTOXNET, A Pesticide Information Project of Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Oregon State University, the University of Idaho, and the University of California at Davis and the Institute for Environmental Toxicology, Michigan State University:
- From National Pesticide Information Center, a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with source citations: LINK
- Lake Morey’s 2009 application for herbicide application LINK – 34 pages but there is LOTS of information buried here, particularly about how Vermont approaches the treatment of lakes with chemicals:
Other pages of interest
Materials for the Informational Meeting
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009This is the sheet that was handed out at the meeting. It is reproduced here for the benefit of those who could not attend.
Lake Fairlee Informational Meeting
Thursday July 23, 2009
Goals for this meeting:
- To bring together lake users
- To share information about the condition of the lake
- To learn what LFA has been doing about milfoil, and to what effect
- To hear from constituents
- To learn from each other
- To work towards understanding how best to care for the lake
Each of us should:
- Try to keep an open mind, and to LISTEN to other speakers
- Respect whoever has the floor, as you would hope that s/he would respect you
- Identify yourself by name and connection(s) to the lake
- Try to plan your questions or remarks so as to be brief
Format:
- Skip Brown (LFA) will act as moderator
- First he will give preliminary remarks, summarizing where we are and how we got here
- Then will introduce the representatives from the State
- They may make a few observations, but are present primarily to answer our questions
- Everyone who wants to speak will be afforded an opportunity. This means that you may not get a second chance until others have had theirs.
Attending:
- Directors of the Lake Fairlee Association
- Divers – employees of LFA who know the condition of the lake better than anyone
- Representative of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental conservation. These are the folks who license and help fund our milfoil program, AND who are charged with licensing and monitoring chemical applications such as in Lake Morey
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Fact, Surmise, and Opinion
1. Milfoil has been growing in Lake Fairlee for at least 15 years.
2. LFA has been removing it for almost that long. Until recently we used only hand pulling. Now we also use suction harvesting and bottom barriers
3. LFA has been spending in excess of $100,000 per year to remove milfoil — about 40% from the State, 10% from the towns, and 50% from donations. (thank you all)
4. Milfoil spreads three ways: by seeding, by root propagation, and by fragmentation. Yes, we know that harvesting also spreads it. But at this point we are resigned to removing as much as we can each season.
5. Other factors affect the amount of milfoil in the lake as much as or more than our eradication efforts. These include lake temperature, sunlight, and phosphate levels.
6. The milfoil is growing and spreading faster than we can remove it. Our divers remove an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the milfoil each season. IF we had two or three full time dive crews we might be able to get ahead of it.
7. Membership and donations in support of our dive program are declining. Again this year we will likely have to stop our dive program early due to lack of funding.
8. Some members believe that we should follow Lake Morey’s lead and use a herbicide to kill the milfoil. Even if we did this and it removed all or most of the milfoil we would have to continue a (more modest) dive program to ensure that the milfoil not become widespread again.
9. Other members are adamantly opposed to the use of ANY chemicals in the lake, fearful of unknown consequences and mindful of the many examples of man’s disastrous intervention with nature.
10. To date we have put NO chemicals in the lake, nor have we spent one dollar on planning for chemical treatment. We have, however, invited two companies to inspect the lake and advise us on possible courses of action, including chemicals.
Triclopyr is the chemical used to kill milfoil in Lake Morey
It is an herbicide that mimics a plant growth hormone. It affects certain grasses. In the doses used (2.5 parts per million) it is not toxic to humans, animals or fish. It has no known reproductive toxicity, teratogenic effects, nor carcinogenic effects.
It has been in use since 1979. (DDT was used for more than 30 years before being banned)
Over 70,000 lbs are used annually in the USA. (I am not claiming this is a good thing)
It breaks down rapidly in water. Renovate OTF (the triclopyr formulation used in Lake Morey) is a triethylamine salt, which dissolves in water and breaks down with a half life of 2.8 to 14.1 hours, depending on season and depth. (photolysis needs sunlight)
A toxic dose of triclopyr (LD/50) for a 120 pound person would be ingesting about an ounce of the raw chemical before it is applied, or drinking more than 3800 gallons of water to which it has been added. It is not readily absorbed through the skin. It can cause burning of the eyes (hence the no swimming rule).
A Great Book for Lake Property Owners
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
I have found a remarkable book about landscaping our shorelines. We have long known that the health of the lake is greatly affected by choices made by owners, builders, and developers. Landscaping at the Water’s Edge: An Ecological Approach from UNH is the best single resource in this area I have found.
ISBN 978-0-9719675-6-4
$20 lots of places, below $15 from tower.com.
As the back cover brags, “This guide explains how our landscsping choices impact surface and ground waters and demponstrates how, with simple observation, ecologically based design, and low impact maintenance practices, you can protect, and even improve, the quality of our water resources.” Lots of good pictures, diagrams, mentions of specific species to plant and not, &cetera.
Informational Meeting Notice – July 23rd
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009What follows was circulated and posted around Lake Fairlee in the weeks before July 23rd under the banner, Chemicals in Lake Fairlee? This headline was intended more to attract peoples’ attention than to frame the discussion. We have reached a tipping point, where our efforts to control Eurasian Milfoil are not keeping up with its growth in our lake. We need to come together as a lake community and take ownership of this problem, and begin to work to address it. The Lake Fairlee Association has called this meeting to begin the process.
- – - – - – - – - -
All Interested Parties Please Attend
An Informational Meeting and Discussion
Concerning the Future of Lake Fairlee
Background:
For over a decade Lake Fairlee has been dealing with an invasive weed called Eurasian milfoil. The Lake Fairlee Association has developed an extensive program using scuba divers every summer to clear patches of milfoil using hand picking, suction harvesting, and bottom barriers. This has been funded by donations from residents, from the three adjoining towns, and by grants from the State of Vermont. Even though our dive program has been called a model program by the state, our resources are limited, and the milfoil continues to thrive in Lake Fairlee.
Meanwhile our neighbor Lake Morey has been combating milfoil for even longer. Three summers ago they received permission to use an herbicide to kill milfoil in the lake. They appear to have had good results, and the milfoil in their lake is greatly reduced. Some Lake Fairlee people have suggested that we ought to do the same. They have serious concerns that that our dive program is not the most efficient use of our resources. Others are disinclined to allow the use of any chemicals in our lake. The LFA Board has determined to be open-minded and cautiously consider the issue. We have begun to gather information, and invite all interested parties to participate in the discussion.
Assertions – which the LFA Board wants to examine and understand
• Even if all the milfoil is killed or removed from the lake, it will likely return.
• Our dive program, at the level at which we can afford to maintain it, is not gaining ground on the milfoil problem.
• Vermont, which regulates all of our milfoil activities, is among the most restrictive of all states about approving the use of chemicals.
• The chemical triclopyr (used in Lake Morey) acts on a growth hormone in a certain class of plants. It does not “poison” people or animals.
• Triclopyr has been around for 30 years, and its toxicity has been exhaustively studied.
• Triclopyr, and its chief metabolite TCP1, have known and measured levels at which it poses a danger to humans and animals, which is many times higher than the levels at which it would be introduced into the lake.
Please join us at 7:00 pm Thursday, July 23rd, at Horizons Day Camp, on Route 244 at Middlebrook Road. Representatives from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources will be on hand to answer questions. Bring your issues and concerns, and see if we can develop a consensus on how to proceed.
Lake Fairelee Association on Facebook
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Do you use facebook? If you do, please visit us you can follow the Lake Fairlee Association HERE