A noxious weed discovered in Payette Lake in 2000 was fully under control this summer and eradication should be the next step, the Big Payette Lake Watershed Advisory Group was told Friday.
Valley County Weed Superintendent John Johann said the six-year old project to control Eurasian water milfoil has succeeded but that the state was unlikely to cut back fiends to fight the invasive weed.
The state review committee understands the effort must continue or Payette Lake would be back to where it was when the infestation was discovered, Johann said.
Part of the county-wide program included surveys for Eurasian water milfoil in other county waterways, but no other county waters have been found to be infested, Johann said.
"After six years of work, we can finally say we have milfoil under control," Johann said.
According to the Idaho governor's invasive species council, the McCall program is a "flagship" in the state's milfoil control effort, said Tom Kerr, who represents Valley County on the council.
Kerr is also a Valley County commissioner and sits on the invasive species council.
"It's one of the success stories of the invasive species council, so they are not going to drop it," he said.
Peter Johnson, former chairman of the defunct Big Payette Lake Water Quality Council and a member of the advisory panel, credited
Kerr and Johann's work with prompting the state to fund invasive species control
The time has come to move from checking growth to eradicating the weed from Payette Lake, Johann said.
Success declared
While state money would be available next year to pay for the project, some entity in the county needs to formulate a plan of action, he said. Johann, who is retiring, said he would put together a budget.
Local participants in the program would probably contribute an in-kind match.
Chairman Bill Weida said he had toured infested areas of Payette Lake by canoe and was "comforted" by what he has seen.
Yearly expenditures since the milfoil program began have ranged from $16,500 to $36,000. The cost in 2006 was $28,000.
Over the years, financial assistance has come from a number
of entities, including the Southwest Idaho Resource Advisory Committee, The Big Payette Lake
Water Quality Council, Payette Lake property owners, Valley County and the cities of McCall and Cascade.
This year's program treated 100 percent of infested and susceptible areas around Payette Lake using dredging and panels that act like garden mulch and prevent the weeds from getting light.
Twenty-eight days of dredging harvested 8,000 pounds of milfoil during the summer, and barriers were moved twice to bring all infested areas under control.
In 2003, about 47,000 pounds of the weed was pulled from the lake, the largest haul for the control program.
Because the barriers proved so effective this year, the local office of the Idaho Department of Lands has pushed-to expand the treatment to other lakes.
