Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer
The Lake George Park Commission has filed a new application to use the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR to control the invasive plant Eurasian watermilfoil at Blairs Bay and Sheep Meadow Bay in the Town of Hague.
The LGPC first applied to use ProcellaCOR in 2022, but the Lake George Association remains steadfastly against their proposal.
In 2022, the state Department of Environmental Conservation approved LGPC’s use of ProcellaCOR, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved in 2018 and then DEC okayed in 2019. The Adirondack Park Agency okayed use of the herbicide in the two bays.
But the LGA, Lake George Waterkeeper, Town of Hague, and a property owner adjacent to the proposed treatment area sued the APA. New York Supreme Court 4th Judicial District Justice Robert Muller vacated the APA’s approval of the application. The state appealed. Now the case is before the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department. Oral argument set between March 25 and 29.
The LGA, in a section of their website titled “Keep ProcellaCOR Out of Lake George,” says “there is no milfoil crisis.”
LGPC Executive Director Dave Wick agrees there is no crisis, but says Eurasian watermilfoil is very aggressive, grows very quickly and “overtakes an entire base over time.”
Mr. Wick terms the LGA’s opposition to use of ProcellaCOR “eminently frustrating, because they have no scientific basis for their stated concerns and continue their path of deliberate misinformation.”
Eurasian watermilfoil first showed up in Lake George in 1985. For over 30 years, the LGPC has managed the invasive milfoil by having divers go underwater and pull the plants up by their roots, a technique known as hand harvesting.
Mr. Wick says that method can be both successful or unsuccessful, depending on circumstances.
“The first plant that you pick makes the water muddy and cloudy, and you can’t really see. And then you have a bunch more plants to pick. And it’s not just getting the stalk of the plant. You have to get the entire root. If you leave 20% of that root, it’s going to regrow. So that’s the challenge that the dive crews have.”
He says numbers of the invasive plant in Lake George have been kept down because of all the money that’s been thrown into the effort — $445,000 was spent in the last year alone pulling plants out of Lake George, in 29 different locations.
In certain areas the milfoil grows back abruptly. “We were in Sunset Bay for eight years, and in that time we spent $300,000-$400,000 in that bay, and today it’s as bad as it ever was,” Mr. Wick says.
He asserts the “groundbreaking aquatic herbicide” ProcellaCOR offers a better solution, eliminating the milfoil for multiple seasons at a fraction of the cost and with less ecological damage.
Mr. Wick said the herbicide only affects a very specific type of plant and goes in at a dosage rate equivalent to one drop in a large swimming pool, dissipates within 24 to 48 hours, leaves no residue, and has zero public health impacts.
He said using ProcellaCOR would reduce by at least half the annual costs associated with invasive milfoil control, while also avoiding the ecological cost of pulling up macroinvertebrates and making the “entire bay look the color of chocolate milk” from hand harvesting.
He said ProcellaCOR does kill native milfoil, but treatment would be in early June, killing Eurasian milfoil that comes up in May but sparing native milfoil, which comes up in late June or early July.
“We can do a ProcellaCOR application that will eliminate every single Eurasian watermilfoil plant while leaving every native plant to repopulate those areas that they used to have, and do it with no water quality or ecological impact,” Mr. Wick said. “Why wouldn’t we consider that?”
The LGA board is adamant in its opposition. Tom West, LGA board vice chair, said, “I don’t know why the Park Commission is so hell-bent on putting chemicals in the lake when there’s really not a crisis, and when other means are working….
“We think that there’s new information coming out on ProcellaCOR every day that tells us all of our concerns are very valid….There’s documented impacts to non-target species in other lakes, there’s documented problems with drift and efficacy in large lakes like Lake George, and there’s label restrictions that preclude feeding livestock.
“So what are people supposed to do with their pets, buy them bottled water until the Park Commission tests and determines that there’s no ProcellaCOR left in the area?
“The label says you can’t water crops. What about people with gardens? There’s a label restriction because this material will kill your garden. There’s very serious issues here that should be debated in a hearing, not rushed to judgment.”
Mr. Wick counters, “You cannot find a scientific study that says it is unsafe for the ecology, humans, public contact, anything.”
The LGA’s website says ProcellaCOR is made for slow-moving or still waters.
“Putting it in Lake George, with its complex circulation throughout the water column and its 140+ streams and outflows, would constitute an off-label use — that is, using it in a way it is not registered for,” LGA’s website states.
But Mr. Wick says the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed the Park Commission’s proposal would be a ‘labeled use’ of ProcellaCOR.
He cites local ProcellaCOR successes.
“Look no further than Lake Luzerne, Glen Lake, Saratoga Lake, Lake Sunnyside or Minerva Lake, all within 30 miles of Lake George,” Mr. Wick said. “All extremely successful ProcellaCOR treatments, all with significant ecological improvements, elimination of milfoil, and zero negative impacts.”
Mr. West responds, “Those are very small ponds, very small lakes. They’re not like Lake George. Lake George is the Queen of American Lakes. It’s 32 miles long. IBM and RPI and the LGA have teamed together on the Jefferson Project to create the most complex ecosystem model in the world.
“And we have data to show that Lake George is fundamentally different from all of those small ponds that Dave points to as being precedent for treating in Lake George. They’re just not the same.”
Mr. West also questions the LGPC’s framing of ProcellaCOR treatment as a cost-saving measure.
“We estimated the cost to treat these two bays using hand harvesting and suction dredging, and it’s less cost than the cost to use the herbicide,” he said.
The LGA website argues, “Once you put a chemical in, there’s no taking it out.”
Mr. West contends, “It’s something that shouldn’t be even considered in Lake George until we’re 100% certain it can be done safely, with no impact to pets, gardens and the ecosystem.”
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