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Back in my day, when a rhododendron was considered an exotic plant, we didn’t have to worry about folks spreading water-clogging super weeds from lake to lake. Heck, you couldn’t even get from lake to lake. Yeah, gasoline was under a buck but who had a car?
Anyway, like I was saying, in 1993 they passed a law prohibiting the transport and introduction of exotic plants in New Hampshire. What happened in 1993? Where were all these exotic plants before 1993? It turns out people all over the state were growing them in their homes.
The fact is these super weeds are decorative aquarium plants from all over the world. Somebody dumped their kid’s aquarium in the lake and those cute little plants completely filled the lake with weeds. Thank goodness they didn’t dump the little fishies in the lake or who’d know what would have happened! I shudder to think about it. We’d be having Guppy tournaments every weekend.
Once a lake gets infested it’s real easy for that infestation to spread to other lakes. All it takes is a little piece of that plant to get stuck on a boat, trailer, or fishing gear and when that boat is launched in a new lake the damage is done. Does that sound scary to you? It sounds scary to me.
So, from 1993 to 2001 it’s illegal to transport these plants around but, nobody knows it’s illegal and nobody knows there’s a problem (except at the lakes that look more like Astroturf from weed infestations). In 2002 the NH Lakes Association puts a program together to educate people how to protect their lakes from infestation. They get funding from local, state and federal sources and start teaching lake associations how to protect their lakes. The PLIA got right on board with this program early on and have been patrolling Pawtuckaway boat launches ever since.
Ok, so here’s the point. There aren’t enough volunteers, or time, to check every boat that puts in at our public launches. People bring their boats to the lake at all times of the day, every day of the week. The Lake Host volunteers try to educate boaters about the danger of spreading exotic plants but, they don’t see everyone that comes to the launch. The folks using the boat launches ALL need to be educated about this problem.
Seems to me we’ve got 15 to 20 bass tournaments on the lake a season with 5 to 40 non-resident boats each. These fishermen travel from lake to lake participating in tournaments. If they haven’t been educated about the problem then they’re clearly a candidate to cause an infestation. The bass tournaments have to get a permit from the State to fish here, so why don’t they make it mandatory for these folks to take an exotic plant inspection course in order to get a permit? And, while they’re at it, why don’t they provide training materials to anyone getting a fishing license, boat or trailer registration.
The current process is ‘hit or miss’. The Lake Host Program has stopped over 80 infestations of exotic plants at boat launches around the state since inception. What if a Lake Host Volunteer had not been on duty on the boat launch those days? Over 50 lakes in New Hampshire are infested with exotic plants it’s not that unlikely that a boater will inadvertently pick up a weed on their boat or trailer.
Our Lake Host volunteers are doing a great job patrolling our borders but they aren’t watching the boat launch 24x7. And, the folks who are most likely to pick up a weed aren’t necessarily being trained. If that situation doesn’t improve then somebody better invent a waterproof weed whacker!
I've got a headache, I'm taking a nap.
Digby McFibben
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