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June 9, 2002 Milfoil is poisoned in Houghton Lake

Is the cure worse than the disease?

STATE PLANS CONTROVERSIAL HOUGHTON LAKE CLEANING Detroit Free Press (MI) By ERIC SHARP FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Date: May 11, 2002 The state has approved a plan to poison an invading waterweed in Houghton Lake, but some biologists fear it will wipe out native aquatic plants that support fish, waterfowl and other life forms. One prominent opponent of the weed treatment plan, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, says the state is trying to clear the lake of weeds to benefit those who run speedboats and personal watercraft to the detriment of fish and waterfowl. SePRO Corp. is scheduled to begin spreading the herbicide fluridone Tuesday in the 20,103-acre lake in northern Lower Michigan to kill an exotic weed called Eurasian water milfoil. The herbicide has been used on large reservoirs in the South, but it never has been used on a Michigan lake bigger than 500 acres. The state Department of Environmental Quality acknowledges that fluridone also could kill some native plants like elodea, an essential part of the food chain that supports the lake’s large populations of walleyes, smallmouth bass, pike and sunfish. DEQ spokesman Eric Bacon said there would be minimal loss of native plants and the affected species would recover quickly. Tom Rozich, a fisheries biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources, disagreed. “Even using DEQ’s data, we know this will have a major effect on elodea, and it does not recover well,” Rozich said. “And we don’t know the effect it will have on wild rice” -- an important water plant for waterfowl -- “because no data is available.” Three critics of the herbicide plan -- Rozich, MUCC Director Sam Washington and Bud Miller, president of the Houghton Lake Association -- said weevils introduced to provide a biological control for the milfoil are doing their job, reducing the invading weed from 10,000 acres of lake area in 1999 to 3,500 acres last year. They say fluridone would be unnecessary if the weevils were given more time. But Bacon said that under state regulations, the DEQ was required to issue a permit. The $5-million project is to last 5 years.

Story submitted by:     Chip Sheahan

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