An environmental duel: Lake George to face herbicide treatment amidst debate about safety, use

Lake George Park Commission faces strong opposition to plans for using herbicide to manage invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. Question swirl when ProcellaCOR appears on Minnesota ‘forever chemical’ list

By Zachary Matson

The Lake George Park Commission is undeterred in its plan to use an herbicide to kill invasive Eurasian watermilfoil, despite the Lake George Association’s persistent opposition and a Minnesota report about the active ingredient.

The continued fight between the state agency charged with managing one of the Adirondacks’ most popular lakes and the well-heeled lake association devoted to its protection has elicited a chain of recriminations, lawsuits and accusations of peddling misinformation.

Neither side is backing down as the commission seeks permits at the Adirondack Park Agency’s meeting on June 20 — with the goal of putting the herbicide in Lake George by the end of the month.

If the commission gets APA approval as well as a Department of Environmental Conservation permit, it plans to drop the herbicide, ProcellaCOR EC, in a pair of northeastern bays that haven’t been managed for milfoil in nearly a decade.

Describing the herbicide use as a trial, the commission proposes to expand chemical treatments in other parts of the lake in the future.   

A back-and-forth debate turns to gridlock

The lake association this year lost in appeal a case questioning the APA’s approval of an earlier permit for the Lake George herbicide project. It has promised more legal challenges to block use this summer.

The organization also offered to pay to harvest milfoil from the two bays this summer, arguing it would buy time to develop a broader invasive species management plan for the lake. The park commission declined the offer.

“It’s shortsighted and shows they are in a rush to do this, and they are not considering the real opposition that exists,” said Peter Menzies, the LGA board chair. “They are ignoring the will of the people.” 

Dave Wick, executive director of the park commission, said more study is unnecessary on how ProcellaCOR will work in the lake. It’s been put through New York and federal review, deemed safe and proven effective on scores of lakes nationwide and in the Adirondack Park.

“There is not one lake management expert or aquatic toxicologist that has the assessment that there is anything unsafe or anything harmful in any way about ProcellaCOR, related to drinking water, related to public swimming, fishing,” Wick said. “It just doesn’t exist in the record.”

ProcellaCOR shows up in PFAS report

Herbicide opponents in recent weeks have pointed to a report on a group of chemicals called PFAS in pesticides. The report, by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, counts the active ingredient in ProcellaCOR, Florpyrauxifen-benzyl, among PFAS under the state’s broad definition.

A large and diverse group of chemicals, PFAS is an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Also known as “forever chemicals,” some types have been found to cause harm to human health or the environment. 

RELATED READING: What are PFAS and are they in Adirondack waters?

At a park commission meeting in May, where the board approved a contract to an herbicide applicator, some Lake George residents used the Minnesota report to assert that the herbicide carried those broader health concerns, despite a federal review finding no human health risks.

One even said the report found that “ProcellaCOR causes cancer.” Others offered more measured comments about their fears that the herbicide could contain the dangerous properties of PFAS.  

Kate Hall, a research scientist with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and lead author of the report, clarified findings with the Explorer.

Hall said the report was a listing of the active ingredients in Minnesota-registered pesticides that meet a new legislative definition of PFAS and did not assess the chemicals’ safety or environmental longevity.

“This report does not comment on whether or not ProcellaCOR causes cancer, it doesn’t comment on whether or not the active ingredient causes cancer,” Hall said. “PFAS are a very large class of chemicals that have different effects, so making broad statements on all of them and what they do, especially in terms of human health, is a challenge.”

A final report is due in February. The latest version details how different definitions of PFAS can result in disparate lists of chemicals classified as such. It also highlighted how chemicals classified as PFAS can have orders of magnitude different effects on human or environmental health.

As an example, the report’s authors found that 95 active ingredients in pesticides met Minnesota’s definition of PFAS, which is any chemical “containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.” 

When instead using the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s definition, which requires a string of multiple fluorinated carbon atoms, they found six active ingredients were classified as PFAS, and ProcellaCOR’s active ingredient was not among those six. 

“We talk about how this is more broad and captures more chemicals than other definitions of PFAS being used,” Hall said. “This is a report for Minnesota and our laws on PFAS — it’s very state specific.” 

The products using the chemicals listed in the report are still approved for use in Minnesota.

Pesticides manufacturers have until 2032 under Minnesota laws to remove PFAS under the definition or receive a “currently unavoidable use” exemption.

Hall said the criteria for granting those exemptions were still in the works but would consider a product’s importance to society and available alternatives.   

LGA officials used the Minnesota report to suggest more evaluation is needed by New York agencies before approving the herbicide’s use.

“The LGA was alarmed and concerned,” Menzies said about the report. “And despite the fact the Minnesota definition is admittedly very broad, the burden is now on the state of New York to very carefully consider the risks they may be taking.”

An offer to pay for hand harvesting

At the park commission’s May meeting, the LGA offered to pay for hand removal of milfoil this season in the two bays targeted. 

Those bays have not been harvested in nearly a decade. Wick said previous attempts at harvesting them did little to beat back the milfoil beds. It was “throwing good money after bad,” he said.

Menzies estimated that it would cost about $50,000 to harvest the bays this summer, arguing if the park commission accepted the association’s offer it would keep the milfoil in check while the commission could continue to develop a longer-term approach with the LGA. 

The lake association has spent about $1 million on harvesting milfoil in the past decade. Menzies lamented the legal and other expenditures the association was committing to its challenge of the ProcellaCOR plan. 

“The resources we are pouring into our opposition would be much better spent on other things like research, monitoring and harvesting milfoil,” Menzies said. 

Ken Parker, chair of the park commission, said that cost was not the only factor in the commission’s interest in ProcellaCOR and declined the association’s offer.

“The Lake George Park Commission’s job as the NYS agency responsible for managing invasive species in Lake George is to evaluate all available management tools and utilize them as best fits the need and the established science,” he wrote in a response to Menzies. “ProcellaCOR has shown itself to be an outstanding new tool to address this invasive species, with results that can greatly exceed our current methods.”