Got Weeds?

By Richard D. Gainar, CEBS – Lake Management Committee

Last month’s “Love the Lake” article discussed that, while aquatic vegetation (“weeds”) can be burdensome and unsightly at times, it’s important to understand their importance to our lake’s ecology.  Weeds help to control or reduce the algae in the water and provide a smorgasbord of baitfish for the fish. 

Our RRA Maintenance crew works hard to cut the weeds in our lake’s channels.  However, there are times when you need to clear the weeds from your dock area so you and your guests can swim, or when they interfere with your watercraft.  You wonder what you should do about them.  There are several tools available that may make the job easier.  Consider the following:

• Weed cutters:these are designed to cut the weeds near the water bottom so they may be raked or gathered.
• Weed rakes:these are designed to pull loose or growing weeds toward you so they may be removed.
• For those of us pressed for time or not up the physical task, there are several contractors in the area who would be happy to do the job.

It is important to gather and remove weeds cut from the lake so as not to contribute additional nutrients (decomposing weeds) into the lake.  Also, uncollected cuttings may root elsewhere and compound your weed problem.  Collected weeds can go into your compost bin or be disposed of at the Village compost site.

An Internet search using key words such as “lake weed rakes” or “lake weed cutters” will yield many different tools at various price levels, but most will cost from about $70 to $200.  Your Lake Management Committee has no specific product recommendations, but you can check out the following YouTube videos to get an idea of the different types of products and how to use them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-B2YFXrB-M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6ZvFXVbjiA

Weeds are something we have to put up with for the short time they become a problem so we may enjoy our beautiful, chemical-free lake.  With no weeds, harmful algae could become dominant and that is a condition very hard to reverse. 

Love the lake and be lake responsible.