Posted on August 6, 2018
Safe, effective, not harmful to fish, fowl or humans.
That’s the state-approved prescription proposed by the Stockbridge Bowl Association for a widely used application of the herbicide SONAR to combat the growing infestation of the invasive milfoil.
But the plan, outlined to about 200 association members at the group’s 72nd annual meeting on Saturday, encountered immediate pushback from several town officials attending the session held at Berkshire Country Day School.
For decades, an invasion of Eurasian water milfoil weeds has been choking parts of the 375-acre, state-owned “Great Pond,” one of the county’s most popular lakes for swimming and watercraft recreation.
The herbicide plan was floated shortly after the MassWildlife shot down a proposal that would have tamed the infestation by drawing down the lake and freezing the roots of the weed. But while that solution eschewed the use of chemicals, it threatened to harm a species of an endangered snail.
The town’s Conservation Commission voted two years ago against any chemical treatments of the lake. However, the state has final say in such disputes, since the Legislature has taken the position that local governments lack the authority to regulate the use of herbicides. State courts have overruled several towns that opposed herbicide treatment, including Wayland several years ago.
“What I see being set up is a confrontational relationship with the town, and that concerns me,” said Kate Fletcher, a Planning Board member and chairwoman of the Zoning Review Committee. “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“We will make an application to the Conservation Commission with the data from over 300 lakes and ponds for over a quarter-century of safe use,” responded Association President Richard Seltzer. “We’ll make that case, and if they want to join us, I would welcome it. I think it would be an enlightened, scientifically sound position and it’s in the best interests of the quality of life on Stockbridge Bowl.”
Fletcher urged Seltzer to “reach out to the entire town and to constituents not necessarily living on the lake and open this up to the entire town. After all, we do give you money.”
But a second-home owner and association member shot back, “We do pay taxes and we don’t vote.”
Board of Health member Charles Kenny asserted that “there are a lot of people in town who want to help you with this, but you have to understand this better and if you get too adversarial right up front with our ConComm, that’s not going to be a good strategy. So please, stand down a little bit.”
One commission member who attended the meeting later emailed a comment urging that the town and the Bowl Association should unite and confront state environmental agencies to pursue a large-scale hydro-dredging solution.
However, John Hart questioned the safety of herbicide treatments, stressing that the commission needs to know details about “what those chemicals are and what their unintended effects might be. This is the job the Commonwealth charges us with. We are not being `hostile’ or presenting a conflict; we are doing what we have do, by law. The decisions regarding this matter will be brought to our board in a public hearing. I, as a resident, just want the animosity thing shut down before too much negativity gets in motion.”
“The Conservation Commission is not the town,” said a speaker at the Saturday meeting who declined to identify himself because he’s a permanent resident and doesn’t want to “get on the wrong side of my local government.”
“The town is the Planning Board, the Selectmen and other commissions, and all the people,” he said. “I have been disappointed not to see any of those other entities question the militant approach the Conservation Commission has taken. Instead of talking about the SBA initiating a confrontation, I think it would be more accurate and helpful for others in the town to take a look at this and understand why the commission’s position is unreasonable at this point, given the options that are left for dealing with the lake.”
“If its policies are followed, the commission will turn the lake into a bog,” he added. He urged the Planning Board to encourage the commission to be “less confrontational and more open to solutions that are actually going to be successful.”
Enthusiastic applause greeted the resident’s remarks.
Explaining the need for a “three-legged stool” solution to the milfoil infestation, Seltzer noted that the weeds have spread out of control since first spotted in the 1940s. “Since then, it has proliferated so there’s nowhere around the perimeter that has not had milfoil one year or another, and some years it stretches around the entire lake,” growing out to depths of up 16 or 17 feet away off the shoreline.
The lake is also plagued by a sediment buildup of up to 10 feet in the outlet channel between the island and the Interlaken Dam, and by water lilies clogging docks in that area.
A multimillion-dollar plan supported by the association and the town for deep-dredging the lake to allow a 5.5-foot winter drawdown to kill the weeds is off the table because Stockbridge Bowl is home to the rare and endangered Marstonia lustrica snail. The state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program of MassWildlife recently vetoed the dredging solution.
That plan involved dredging a 7-foot deep channel in the outlet and use a diversion drain to suck water out of the lake for the annual 5.5-foot drawdown.
“That would expose the milfoil roots and freeze them, killing the roots,” said Seltzer, a method used widely on lakes from Texas to Maine to kill weeds. The MassWildlife program revoked permission for the extensive drawdown because it would create “a killing zone” that would wipe out the rare snails by depriving them of water and exposing them to a freeze. A less-effective 2.9-foot drawdown would be authorized in the future.
Only hydraulic dredging at shallow depths, rather than conventional dredging, would be permitted by the state agency in order to allow the snails to survive at the bottom of the channel.
The MassWildlife program has given a green light to the herbicide treatment plan because it has been used successfully in lakes statewide and does not harm mollusks such as the Marstonia lustrica snails.
The agency recommended the SONAR brand or its generic equivalent for the herbicide application “because they know it’s safe for people, snails and fish,” Seltzer pointed out.
Representing SOLitude Lake Management Co., a national firm, biologist Keith Gazaille noted that the science-based techniques are used nationwide and in Canada on up to 10,000 lakes, including 800 in Massachusetts.
After collecting data and a vegetation survey, the company will devise the most efficient, most cost-effective lake-management approach with the least impact, he said.
“The biggest hurdle is the ultimate design and permitting,” Gazaille said. A notice-of-intent permit is required from the local conservation commission, which has 21 days to vote yes or no after receiving the application.
“If they want to be obstructive, we’ll be immediately prepared,” Seltzer told the crowd. A negative decision would be appealed to the state Department of Environmental Protection, he added.
The state DEP also has to sign off on the project through a “license to apply chemicals” permit.
No decision to apply an aquatic herbicide is taken lightly, Gazaille acknowledged, “but the reality is through current technology, the technique is the most-effective means of controlling a well-established invasive plant population.”
The estimated timeline for the project includes the following, subject to change:
– November-December 2018: A report from SOLitude on program recommendations based on preliminary studies.
– Early 2019: Final design and work to begin permitting process.
– Late April-May 2019: A whole-lake weed-control program begins, expected to be extensively-tested, EPA-registered SONAR herbicide treatment products using the chemical fluoridone at extremely low doses, to control weed infestation (through two or three applications by liquid and pellet formulation) by “starving the plants,” using an airboat and continuing into early summer. No lake restrictions such as swimming, drinking or boating following the day of application. No impact on fish or mollusks. The killed weeds would decompose at the bottom of the lake.
– December 2019: Report from SOLitude on the results of the herbicide-treatment program.
The bowl association board has unanimously approved as a three-pronged solution the herbicide approach on the main body of the lake, as well as a hydrorake to clear the water lily buildup on docks in the outlet channel and hydraulic dredging to pump a slurry of vegetative sediment to nearby flat areas to dewater the sludge. Location of the dredging channel requires approval of the MassWildlife program.
The cost of the dredging is projected at $1 million to $2 million following a planned competitive bidding request for proposals from contractors.
Answering a question from Lenox resident Olga Weiss on whether mechanical approaches, such as a weed harvester, could attack the milfoil invasion, Seltzer replied: “Most people are unhappy with mechanical means. It doesn’t get rid of it, doesn’t even postpone it for a month. It’s like getting a haircut. Even though I got a haircut yesterday, in another month I’ll need another haircut.”
The association reported that it has about $2 million available for a lake cleanup and has spent several hundred thousand so far on engineering and design studies for the dredging and drawdown rejected by the state, all of it funded through federal Clean Water Act programs administered by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
In addition, $1 million was spent on a diversion pipe for the ill-fated major dredging project.
Source: The Berkshire Eagle
