After years of controversy, state officials apply ProcellaCOR in fight against invasive milfoil
By Zachary Matson
In a first for Lake George, a state contractor dropped an herbicide into a pair of northern basin bays to fight Eurasian watermilfoil, an invasive plant that poses problems in many Adirondack lakes.
The application, early Saturday, came at the direction of the Lake George Park Commission, a state body, over fierce objections of shoreline property owners and the Lake George Association.
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The commission’s contractor, Solitude Lake Management, applied ProcellaCOR in Blairs Bay and Sheep Meadow Bay along the lake’s eastern shore.
The bays have been described as demonstration sites and, if the herbicide proves effective at killing milfoil beds, the herbicide could be deployed in a handful of other sites around the lake in coming years.
The LGA and residents had sought to block the herbicide in court after the Adirondack Park Agency and Department of Environmental Conservation issued the lake commission permits to move forward with its plan, first proposed more than two years ago. A Warren County judge on Friday paved the way for the herbicide’s use after he rejected a motion to halt the plan while new claims of potential harm were litigated.
Both bays were treated by 8 a.m. While weather conditions were not ideal, the applicator consulted the company that produces the herbicide and picked early Saturday morning before rain and winds picked up, according to Dave Wick, executive director of the lake commission.
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Some property owners in the bays have opposed the plan, joining the LGA’s lawsuit and expressing frustration that the lake commission pursued its plan over their objections.
While no government agency has found human health risks associated with the herbicide — and its use did not necessitate restrictions to drinking water, recreation or fishing — residents said they were concerned by the lack of long-term studies. Herbicide opponents have argued Lake George should not be managed with chemicals and pointed to examples of pesticides with governmental approval later discovered as harmful.
“Lake George has never relied on a chemical approach, and we just don’t feel that it’s necessary,” Lake George Waterkeeper Chris Navitsky said Monday.
Jillian Maginnis, who owns a camp along the application zone in Sheep Meadow Bay and joined the lawsuit against the plan, said she watched as a handful of commission marine patrol vessels blocked boat traffic from entering the bay as they applied the herbicide.
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She said she was frustrated that the public was not given more prior notice of when the herbicide would be used, but that they were notified shortly after the application was complete.
“There’s really not much left to say. We are extremely disappointed that it went in,” she said.
Helena Rice, another shoreline property owner who dislikes the herbicide plan, was arrested after she attempted to interfere with the application while on a jet ski.
Commission officials said she “buzzed” boats of the commission and its contractor.
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Both the commission and the LGA are collecting water samples to assess the spread and dilution of the herbicide.
The commission is collecting samples every 24 hours and sending them to the herbicide manufacturer’s lab in North Carolina, looking for concentrations to drop below 1 part per billion before removing the only relevant water use restriction in place during the project. It restricts using lake water to water yards and gardens.
Wick said he expects the first round of those results to be posted on the commission website sometime Friday.
The LGA is working with the Jefferson Project, a Lake George water monitoring program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for water quality monitoring. The Jefferson Project deployed equipment ahead of treatment and plan to assess concentration levels and other water quality standards. They also plan to collect data on plants and macroinvertebrates in the two bays.
The commission contracted with Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District to conduct water sampling.
Divers will return 30 and 60 days following the herbicide use to document the plant community, including by filming underwater.
Years ago, the commission abandoned efforts to hand-harvest milfoil in the two demonstration bays, deeming the method not worth the cost and time.
The commission, though, promised to return to harvesting the bays by hand in the future now that the herbicide is expected to beat back the milfoil beds.
“Once we get ahead of it and we start the slate with zero then every year we will be in those bays,” Wick said.
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We need better leaders working together to protect Lake George for future generations. Dave Wick, and the LGPC, mismanaged this whole process the wrong way from the start. Not having transparent meetings with public BEFORE making their decisions, using one sided data from the manufacturer supplied/sponsored data to sway opinions, and contradicting themselves at every opportunity during the whole process.
Case in point, this went in Saturday June 29, 7am, a very cloudy, rainy, and windy day. The whole day was stormy and cloudy, all day until the next morning even. In an article from this very reporter interviewing Dave Wick, he stated: ” It can’t be windy, it can’t be rainy. It’s best if it’s not cloudy, just because it breaks down immediately through photolysis.”
Why wasnt this applied during optimal conditions for the best, targeted results? Isnt the likelihood this would drift into the larger, deeper parts of the lake where it wont break down by photolysis and be less effective, on a windy, cloudy day be significantly higher? Seems like a poor management decision to me that was rushed. If you’re going to force it on people, at least do it the right way. We need better leaders who arent driven by ego over social concerns.
No prior notification was given beforehand at all to residents, even though it was promised multiple times and documented (in a public zoom posted in the LGPC website with Huletts Resident 6/23). How do we continue to trust anything else they say moving forward to us. We need better leaders for the Lake.
We havent seen any LGPC board members or Dave Wick swimming in one of the applications zones right after they put in the chemical. Way to lead and put your words to action, and make the worried public feel better that this chemical is completely safe. Good leaders lead by example.
We need better leaders, the Lake deserves better.
This is extremely concerning, people in the area drink, bath, wash their teeth with this water. With the lack of notification people did in fact do all of those things without the knowledge of chemicals being placed in the water. The only notification were tiny signs on the way down the mountain. I am willing to send you pictures.
There was someone swimming in the lake when it was being applied. The person applying it had protective equipment on yet had no problem dumping it around someone swimming.
Did it mention that LGA offered to pay for hand harvesting of the milfoil. They offered a solution that would cost nothing to the LGPC, yet they insisted on putting a forever chemical in that they did have to pay for? This makes no sense!
Thanks to Zach Matson for his thorough updates on this important matter in Lake George.
With 5000 folks saying NO to ProcellaCOR into Lake George one has to wonder how many said YES to LGPC. I asked LGPC that question & never heard back from them. ODD for sure! With findings from Minnesota Dept of Arigulture stating PFAS , a forever chemical with CANCER toxic, why then did LGPC ignore that finding. Travel & Leisure Magazine June issue stated that Lake George is America’s CLEANEST LAKE. Seems LGPC didn’t read that issue or care about if they did. It’s a SHAME what LGPC just did to The Queen of American Lakes.
The PFAS issue is a red herring, almost everything said about it in this overall discussion regarding Procellacor is incorrect but it sure gets people wound up anyway. Maybe that’s the intent? PFAS refers to a class of over 15,000 substances; a few of those have been shown to be harmful but the vast majority have not. Their use saves lives every day, for example coatings on stents. The Procellacor debate is a good one but linking it to PFAS incorrectly detracts from the credibility of the rest of the debate. BTW, the Lake Bomoseen Association has a milfoil website that is a bit of a counterpoint to the LGA position but regardless of your view it has links to a number of independent research studies that are informative.
Shame on LGPC.
Thank you Mike for your thoughtful comment, and also Martin and Steve.
Seriously, after all of this, and forcing this on us, at least read the instructions on the bottle — product indicated for quiescent water bodies only (i.e. NOT LG, which is rapidly-moving and dynamic), and application is meant to take place during sunny, non-rainy conditions so that it breaks down more rapidly. In light of both of these missteps, in how many far-flung sections of the lake will the stuff be found now, without having broken down?? Guess we will find out. (Or maybe not, until things start going badly down the road for the health of the lake and folks who live there).
A travesty that the country’s cleanest lake (and the six adjacent communities, all of whom formally objected to the herbicide) have to be the ones that suffer this “experiment” by the LGPC…..and their maladroit handling of the whole process.
The sterling reputation and health of the natural ADK world — what else do we have if that goes away?
And thank you to Zachary Matson for crucial journalism coverage of this “do or die” issue for LG and all affected communities, please keep it up.
When are they going to check for septic tanks that are leaking into the lake. Proof being E -coli found ate the Million Dollar Beach this summer. NOT the first time.