Please read! This is what NPA is trying to avoid for our membership. We could definitely use a lot more volunteer CBIs to inspect boats at our boat landing all summer! Read on...
By Mechele Cooper mcooper@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
BELGRADE LAKES -- As spring approaches, teams are gearing
up to stop the invasion of variable milfoil in Great Pond and Great
Meadow Stream, which flows from North Pond into Great Pond.
That effort will come into focus Tuesday, when the
commissioner of Maine State Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Chandler
Woodcock, meets with the Belgrade Lakes Association's Milfoil Task
Committee. They'll discuss who should be restricted from using portions
of the bodies of water in order to prevent spreading of the invasive
plant species.
The public may attend the meeting, which will be held at 4 p.m. at the Maine Lakes Resource Center at 137 Main St.
Lynn Matson, co-chairman of the Belgrade Lakes Association's Milfoil
Task Committee, said Woodcock was invited to discuss the possibility of
extending existing restrictions to non-motorized watercraft, including
canoes and kayaks.
Mark Heuberger, who co-chairs the committee with Matson, said his group also would like to close the area to fishermen.
"The key issue is that it applied only to motorized boats and we're
trying to expand that restriction so it applies not only to motorize
boats but to all boats and fishing," Heuberger said. "One of the things
to successfully control milfoil is to keep people out of that area.
Motor props and the action of a paddle, even a fishing lure can cause
fragmentation of the plant. That's how it spreads to other parts of the
lake."
The Maine Departments of Environmental Protection and Inland
Fisheries and Wildlife imposed a surface use restriction in 2010,
barring motorboats from the stretch of Great Meadow Stream between the
Route 225 bridge and the mouth on the stream in the North Bay of Great
Pond, where a milfoil infestation has occurred.
Great Meadow Stream flows from North Pond into the northwest corner
of North Bay and divides Rome and Smithfield. Dozens of volunteers have
been pulling milfoil plants out by hand.
Heuberger said raising public awareness is a key way of preventing
milfoil from spreading and choking off native plants and ruining the
waters for other habitat and for recreation. He believes boaters would
want to help the effort and stay out of the area.
The Belgrade Lakes Association kicked off its $500,000 Stop Milfoil
Campaign on Feb. 1. Matson said the campaign will fund a three-year
effort to control the milfoil infestation in the stream and Great Pond.
"We've been in contact with New England Milfoil and they'll come in
for nine weeks this summer and lead the hand-pulling efforts," Heuberger
said.
In addition to volunteers, the Belgrade Regional Conservation
Alliance will hire summer staff to do the pulling and put down barriers,
while surveying both Great Pond and Long Pond for other milfoil
outbreaks, he said.
The New England Milfoil Company has a team of certified divers that
has spent hundreds of hours underwater hand-pulling tons of milfoil from
area lakes and ponds, according to its website. The company also uses a
suction harvester that can suck up dense patches of the invasive plant.
Matson said the campaign has collected $75,000 worth of donations in its first three weeks.
Mechele Cooper -- 621-5663
mcooper@centralmaine.com
MILFOIL MEETING
For more information on Tuesday's meeting or on the Milfoil Task
Committee, call the Maine Lakes Resource Center at 495-7793 or contact
Corinne Dawson at the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance at
495-6039.
