Volunteer lake association applicant calls for ‘lifetime permits’ to help streamline process
By Zachary Matson
A pair of Adirondack lake associations hope to win approval at the Adirondack Park Agency’s May meeting to use the herbicide ProcellaCOR to kill invasive milfoil or face a quick turnaround
if the permits are pushed to June.
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With nearly a dozen lakes in the park having already used the herbicide, and reporting positive results, the Mountain View Association in the northern Adirondacks and Eagle Lake property owners near Ticonderoga are looking to use it this spring to kill back Eurasian watermilfoil. Both proposed projects are open for public comments at the APA website.
Lake associations call for state support
As smaller lake associations turn to the herbicide as more cost effective than contracting dive crews to harvest the invasive plants by hand, they argue that state agencies should shoulder more of the burden to control the region’s most pervasive aquatic invader. But in the meantime, they are scraping together the funding to do it themselves, one bake sale at a time.
Bruce Burditt of Mountain View Association, who splits time between Malone and the town of Bellmont, said the state should dedicate tourism dollars to take over invasive milfoil control. The milfoil problem is both fueled by tourism and diminishes the benefits brought by visitors, he said. And the state owns land on many of the lakes being managed by private citizens.
“It would be great if [the state] took over the whole project, but they don’t seem to want to recognize there is a problem,” Burditt said.
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If agencies want to leave it up to lake associations, Burditt added, the state should streamline the application process or even grant “lifetime permits” to empower the associations to drop the herbicide as needed into the future, without returning to permitting agencies for every use.
Burditt said any steps to streamline the process with APA or the Department of Environmental Conservation would ease the time and cost burden on volunteer lake associations, often dependent on cookouts, basket raffles and other small-dollar fundraising to back the herbicide projects.
“It’s a big investment for all the lake associations,” Burditt said. “It would be nice if we had a permit to treat our waters in areas as needed where needed.”
Mountain View Lake
Burditt said he has been in communication with other northern Adirondack lake associations that have used ProcellaCOR in recent years, including Chateaugay Lake, as Mountain View developed its own plan.
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The lake association uses dive crews each summer to harvest the milfoil but members feel like they have made little progress, Burditt said. The group envisions using the herbicide every few years to rotate through problem areas, continuing to supplement with annual hand harvesting as they gradually squeeze out the invasive.
The proposal currently under APA review would treat a pair of 20-acre plots. Mountain View Lake was among a handful of lakes across the Adirondack Park where locals and APA staff observed a notable decline in invasive milofil last summer, but Burditt said the plants emerged later in the season and continue as a major nuisance for boaters, paddlers, swimmers and lake residents.
“It didn’t go anywhere,” Burditt said.
Eagle Lake
Just north of Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, Eagle Lake includes over 70 lakefront properties on quiet waters alongside state Route 74.
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The lake association fought back against a state plan to close off trailered boat access at a DEC boat launch in recent years. But a gate limiting access to kayaks, canoes and other small hand-launch boats went up in October.
The group is now shifting its focus to invasive milfoil, which has infested the lake for decades. Since around 2010, after an earlier plan to use a different herbicide on the lake sputtered, the only milfoil removal has been ad-hoc hand harvesting undertaken by residents. Now, the group hopes that ProcellaCOR can kill the worst areas, and the group can take up a new effort at organized hand harvesting to maintain the lake with low levels of invasive milfoil.
“This herbicide has opened up a huge window for all of us to reclaim our lakes from the milfoil,” said Susan Clark, who is leading the lake association’s milfoil plan.
The proposal calls for treating up to 40 acres across five problem areas.
A plant survey last year documented occurrences of four native milfoils in Eagle Lake, more variety than has been typical of lakes to use the herbicide. The native milfoils would be sensitive to the herbicide, but lake managers hope that by using the herbicide by the end of June, it can kill the invasive milfoil before the native milfoil has grown enough to become susceptible. In the long run, one goal of killing back the invasive plants is to create more space for native plants to thrive.
Clark also said any state financial support would be welcome and noted the challenges of raising money from property owners who remember earlier attempts that failed to garner necessary approvals. Once approvals are in hand, Clark said she thinks more homeowners will back the project financially.
Closure of the boat access shifted the herbicide plans away from milfoil beds in the path to and from the launch to other priority areas of the lake, Clark said.
“We understand this is not about one or two treatments, but about responsible stewardship of our lake,” the lake association wrote in its APA application.
Related reading on ProcellaCOR
Photo at top: The sun sets over Eagle Lake near Ticonderoga in the Adirondacks. Photo by Herb Terns / Times Union
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