After declaring a “guarded victory” in its 11-year campaign to eradicate the invasive aquatic milfoil plant from the Songo River and Brandy Pond, the Lakes Environmental Association set out for Frye Island this week to confront the milfoil invasion there.
On Monday, the association sent a milfoil control team and a Diver Assisted Suction Harvester, which is a boat featuring a vacuum pump, to remove milfoil from Quail Cove, Long Beach Marina, and other areas along the shore of Frye Island. According to Frye Island Town Manager Gary Donohue, many volunteers assisted in the effort, picking up stray milfoil pieces while walking along the shore or paddling in kayaks.
Since 2004, the Bridgton-based environmental group has employed four to eight crew members in the summer to remove milfoil, which chokes freshwater ecosystems and spreads exponentially when boat engines chop up the plants into smaller, self-replicating fragments. Given the declaration of a qualified victory on the Songo, the association has begun to draw up battle plans for an even bigger target: Sebago Lake, which is just downriver from the Songo. The Frye Island effort, they say, could be a taste of things to come.
The Sebago Lake Milfoil Action Cooperative, which is focused on public education regarding the milfoil threat, as well as early detection, funded this week’s Frye Island Milfoil Project with a grant from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Diane Potvin of Raymond, who last year lobbied for a bill in the Legislature that increased revenues for the state’s milfoil sticker program, established the cooperative with Roberta Hill earlier this year.
Peter Lowell, the executive director of the Lakes Environmental Association, said that the cooperative requested the association’s help in taking on the Frye Island milfoil problem.
“Because we’re pretty well finished on the Songo and Brandy, they asked if our milfoil team would be available to do some plant control on one of the three sites that they had selected for harvesting,” Lowell said.
While the roughly 10-acre Songo River and Brandy Pond milfoil invasion took 11 years to conquer, and about $400,000 in funds, Lowell thinks the Sebago milfoil explosion, which he estimates at 30-40 acres in total, could also be vanquished in about a decade, as long as it begins next summer.
But complete eradication would take about $1 million, about 10 milfoil control teams and close collaboration by the lake’s various milfoil control groups, property owners, business and municipalities, he said.
Lowell said this week’s collaboration between the association and the cooperative shows how the assault on Sebago’s milfoil invasion could work.
“This is kind of a concrete example of how LEA can utilize its resources to help Sebago Lake clean up its plant problem,” he said.
Donohue said the town of Frye Island greatly appreciates the work.
“It’s vitally important,” Donohue said. “Removal of milfoil in the Lakes Region is very important for tourism growth, the retail sector, and the environment of the public waters.”
Lakes Environmental Association staffers and volunteers who worked all week on an effort to fight milfoil off of the shores of Frye Island pose with a Diver Assisted Suction Harvester, which is a boat featuring a vacuum pump that helps remove milfoil.Photos courtesy of Gary Donohue
Divers working on Frye Island this week remove milfoil from Long Beach Marina, on the southern end of Frye Island. A Lakes Environmental Association milfoil control team and local volunteers worked all week on the effort.
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