LAKE GENEVA, WI (SPECTRUM NEWS) — The Geneva Lake Environmental Agency took a new approach to handling the invasive plant Starry Stonewart in the popular Southern Wisconsin Lake.
The Agency, or GLEA, hired divers this week to hand pick the plant from the lake floor and dispose of it.
“It's looking like this is probably, hand pulling, it probably the most effective,” said Ted Peters, GLEA's director.
Last year the Agency used a chemical treatment in the lagoon where Starry Stonewart was introduces, however they didn't see a large impact.
“So we thought the next step is to maybe try to go out into the lake and hand pull it,” Peters said.
The divers pull plants from the bottom of the lake and put them into bags. To pull off the operation GLEA put out a call for volunteers with kayaks to bring the plants to the shore. It's help that's crucial for the divers.
“When we come to the surface we want to be able to clip the bag on the boat as soon as possible, get a clean bag and drop back down so we're in the same general area of where we left off and we can keep going,” said Mike Wittleiff, a diver with Venture Crew 519.
Wittleiff said most of their work diving is focused on clean up after other treatments of invasive plants like Eurasian Milfoil. However, with the Starry Stonewart, diving is a better first option.
GLEA had no problem getting volunteers from the towns surrounding Geneva Lake.
“It speaks a lot for the local community, we really care about our lake,” said Susan Olson, a Fontana resident.
Olson and her friends came out because they want to help keep the lake clean.
“It's tremendously important, I mean it draws a lot of tourism, we enjoy it as locals and we like to keep the lake healthy and clean,” Olson said.
The Starry Stonewart was introduced to Geneva Lake within the last few years. Peters said the Lake is already healthy and has kept the invasive plant from spreading too far.
“By hand pulling it we're just giving the lake a little bit of an advantage,” Peters said.
Peters said it's important to be on top of invasive plants like the Starry Stonewart as soon as it's identified.
“Invasives tend to be aggressive and they can outcompete the native species, generally there are certain aspects to these invasives that give them a competitive advantage. So then it becomes very difficult once they get in there and start going to control them,” Peters said.
Invasive plants are most often spread between waterways by human activity like boating. Peters urges people to check their boats before and after entering a waterway.
“When you leave a lake you should be taking nothing live from that lake to another lake,” Peters said.