People at Work : : Vacuuming the Lake Part II

Last week I wrote about a new approach to removing the Azolla, or water fern plant, from the surface of Spring Lake. There is unsubstantiated speculation that the 2 million gallons of fire retardant dropped in the area during October's fires may have fertilized the plant and caused an unprecedented bloom and the spread of an unsightly reddish-brown carpet over the lake. According to a kayaker, trying to paddle through the Azolla was like 'trying to paddle through oatmeal'.

In the past, the county has sprayed herbicides on the invasive weeds, but the dead plants which sank to the bottom of the lake were nourishing toxic blue green algae, so this year the county is paying $3,000 a day to a company which mechanically vacuums up the bloom from the surface of the lake. Here is a picture of the 32 foot long aquatic harvester at work.

Today when I walked past the boat dock I saw the harvester unloading a ton of the floating weed onto a conveyor belt which drops it into a red trailer which hauls it to a county property where it is mixed with other organic material to make compost. I must say that the whole process is pretty efficient and the lake looks much better. 

The process doesn't seem to have disturbed the large population of aquatic birds at Spring Lake. The extra shows a pair of Canada geese ushering their hoarde of young across the path from the lake to the grass. I wonder when they will invent a clever way to vacuum up goose poo, of which there is an abundance?