From south to north, ProcellaCOR use against invasive watermilfoil continues to spread across Adirondacks
By Zachary Matson
At least three Adirondack Park lake communities this year are planning to deploy a controversial aquatic herbicide to fight invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. A fourth takes its fight over the herbicide’s use to an Albany courtroom this month.
The Adirondack Park Agency is considering permit applications from the Horseshoe Pond-Deer River Flow Association, Brant Lake Association and town of Caroga Lake. All are seeking to deploy ProcellaCOR in May or June. The number of lake communities interested in the herbicide has continued to increase since the product was first used in the Adirondacks on Minerva Lake in 2021 and Lake Luzerne last year.
The communities stretch across the park. From East and West Caroga lakes in Fulton County, near the park’s southern boundary, to Horseshoe Pond in Franklin County, near the park’s northern border. The Paradox Lake Association already has APA approval to use the herbicide this year. Nearby Brant Lake is hoping to join.
“The threat New York lakes face due to invasives is a real challenge,” said John Dunn, president of the Brant Lake Association. “If we don’t get milfoil under control in the park, what’s going to happen when the next invasive comes?”
More about milfoil, ProcellaCOR
What is ProcellaCOR herbicide and how does it target milfoil?
Lake associations and local municipalities have sought to keep invasive milfoil in check mostly through hand harvesting methods. They see the relatively new herbicide as a cost-effective way to combat the pervasive nuisance weed.
ProcellaCOR was federally registered for use in 2018. Since then, New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and APA have signed off on putting it in Adirondack waters with no restrictions based on human health.
Some residents, though, have raised concerns about potential unknown consequences of widespread chemical use and have not been assuaged by the assurances of government agencies that deem it safe to the environment and the public.
Affordable option
About 40 private properties share ownership of Horseshoe Pond, and they started to manage invasive milfoil around 2000. After years of raising money to fund dive teams to remove milfoil, they ran out of funding support around 2015.
After a few years, homeowners sought to restart removal and were told it would take 10 years and $1 million to manage the milfoil.
“We have looked at several options for how to control it, and (ProcellaCOR) is our best option,” said Robert Mayville, who has a family camp at Horseshoe Pond and serves as the lake association president.
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Photo by Tim Rowland
Mayville said Horseshoe Pond’s large milfoil beds have diminished the ability to drive boats and created less pleasant fishing conditions.
The pond connects downstream to the state-owned Deer River Flow in the Debar Wild Forest. That large flow is also infested with Eurasian watermilfoil, and the lake association hopes that problem will be addressed in the future.
“We will have to keep an eye on it and will probably have to do some hand harvesting in the future,” Mayville said. “That’s a little more manageable to us than paying $1 million.”
The Horseshoe Pond application calls for treating nearly 25 acres of the 51-acre water body, and is open for public comments until March 14.
The Brant Lake Association filed its application about a year ago, to use ProcellaCOR on 164 acres in the 1,500-acre lake. Invasive milfoil was first spotted on the lake in the late-1980s. The lake association and town of Horicon have spent over $1 million managing it since. In 2021, a team of contract divers removed over 9,000 pounds of milfoil in 62 days of harvesting.
Dunn said the lake association started looking at ProcellaCOR after it started to get approved in New York as an option to more effectively and affordably tackle invasive milfoil. The group held public information sessions to address questions and concerns and have been openly discussing the herbicide for the past five years.
The association plans to treat its densest milfoil beds with the herbicide, while continuing to use divers to harvest by hand.
“What we are hoping is the dive team can be spent getting some of the marginal zones under control and stop the spread,” Dunn said.
While letters of support outnumbered opposition around Brant Lake, some residents raised concerns the herbicide could threaten the lake ecosystem or public health in the future. “We are afraid of potential health consequences which could affect people now or in the future,” one couple wrote.
The town of Caroga Lake submitted its permit application last week. It is is planning to treat spots in both east and west lakes.
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An impoundment behind a dam could be drained and then the exposed lake bottom treated with a herbicide or even left exposed to the elements. Lakes like the Sacandaga Reservoir didn’t have a problem with milfoil when I boated on it because the shallow areas become dry during the off-season.
Here in Tennessee the lakes whose levels are deliberately varied by anywhere from a few feet to tens of feet per year aren’t troubled by invasive plants like milfoil.
Perhaps the powers that be should check out the successes at Lake Bonaparte near Watertown. They had a very serious issue with Milfoil that was curbed using weevils. This might be a much better ecological solution.
The problem with introducing a foreign agent to control an invasive species is that the control agent becomes invasive.
In Tennessee, Asian lady beetles were introduced to control sap-sucking aphids. The crop damage from aphids decreased but every year we now have lady beetle infestations. Any opening in a home will be found by the beetles and then become an interior nuisance; I speak from experience. I had to hire an exterminator to deal with these insects and they still infest the outside surface of my home.
The TVA introduced kudzu to control erosion on slopes and it works very well, too well. The problem is that it spreads so rapidly that it chokes out native species, trees in particular. The remedy is either treatment with 2, 4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, herbicide, or a flamethrower. Another foreign control agent, stinkbugs, doesn’t work very well and when crushed they stink.