(Orleans)– Officials have now confirmed the presence of Eurasian watermilfoil in several of the Iowa Great Lakes. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources tells KUOO news the agency’s Aquatic Plant Management Team made the discovery just days ago…
“That team was on the water last week and found some Eurasian watermilfoil on East Okoboji Lake. With further examination we ended up finding it on East Okoboji Lake, Upper Gar, Lake Minnewashta and Lower Gar Lake.”
Hawkins says as of now they’re trying to get a better handle on the extent of the infestations…
“We’re in discovery phase now. We’re trying to figure out how much of the plant we have. It is very sporadic, so it’s not in high number right now, but we’re planning currently to do some quick attack, so we want to do our best and throw everything that we’ve got at this plant to try to control it early and try to knock it back. We don’t want it to get widespread in other words, and then try to do something. So just over the next couple of weeks here we’ll be doing quite a bit of work in isolating the locations where the plant is and then putting some control measures in place and actually treating the plant.”
Hawkins says it’s anybody’s guess at this point as to how the plant will react or what it’s impacts will be…
“The plant is aggressive in some situations so it can take over a native plant community and become very dominant, and it can cause some navigation issues and some water use issues for the general public. Ecologically, of course, that’s not a good thing, either. There are situations, though, where there are native healthy aquatic plants that are growing in the lake and Eurasian watermilfoil really does not impact the lake very much. It’s very hard to predict how this plant will react, especially in all the different lakes we have here in the Iowa Great Lakes with all the different complexity. It’s hard to predict what that impact will be but, you know, we’re going to be monitoring that situation very closely.”
Kim Bogenschutz, the DNR’s aquatic invasive species program coordinator, says it is vitally important boats be cleaned, drained and dried after each time out on the water. It is illegal to possess or transport prohibited aquatic invasive species, such as Eurasian watermilfoil, in Iowa. Boaters must also drain all water from boats and equipment before leaving a water access and must keep drain plugs removed or opened during transport.
