Tuesday August 28, 2001   Meeting Synopsis

 Chairman Jim Deamud called the public meeting to order at 7:05 PM in the Houghton Lake High School Auditorium.  The agenda for the meeting was as follows.

 Report to the community on Board activity and accomplishments to date.

·         Description of the Eurasian Water Milfoil problem in Houghton Lake.

·         Description of possible methods of control.

·         Current status of project.

·         Public Comment.

Chairman Jim Deamud comments follow:
 The Houghton Lake Improvement Board is not the first organization to investigate the condition of the lake.  The Board grew out of another committee that was established as the result of information gained in a study for Denton Township regarding swimmers itch. 

 In the Denton Township study, Dr. Doug Pullman of Aquest Corp advised the township that he had found extensive beds of Eurasian Water Milfoil in the survey area and suggested that steps be taken to control its spread.  Up to that time, we all were aware that we had weeds in the lake but in general were not aware of this particular type of weed.

 The four township supervisors surrounding the lake, lead by the then Denton Supervisor Joe Fanio formed Houghton Lake Aquatic Plant Management Committee and invited many community members to participate. After about a year of study, that committee determined that to make any meaningful, long-term decisions regarding the lake that they needed statutory authority.

 The previous committee working with the four townships had a “qualitative” study performed to determine the types of weeds in the lake.  This is the study that has been reported in our local newspapers and refers to approximately 9,000 acres of milfoil in the lake.  That study just determined what weeds were in the lake.  The study did not say how much on any particular weed was present.

 It was after the study that the current Board was formed.  The board arises out of a specific Michigan statute, Public Act 451 of 1994.  The member and alternates to the Board were identified.

 What has the Board been doing?  The Board first approached our US Senators and requested assistance and was successful in receiving a grant for $75,000.  These funds went to the US Army Corps of Engineers to study the lake and advise the Board of possible options for control of the Eurasian water milfoil.  The Corps of Engineers began their work with a meeting last April at the Macmillan Center at Higgins Lake.  Present were Corps staff, representatives from 4 different universities with programs focused on milfoil control, DNR & DEQ representatives from Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota and most of the HLIB.

 From the information presented and available at the time of the Conference, the Corps is formulating a more comprehensive report on remediation strategies and that report is due to be released in late September. Upon receipt of the report from the Corps of Engineers, the Board will begin hearings to review the report with the community.  Those hearings will most likely begin in October or early November.  After the completion of those hearings, the Board will select a remediation plan.  After the Board makes it selection there will be a period of time for members of the community to raise objections.

 We also need an engineer, as required by our establishing Act, to help us implement our plan.  We have recently hired a lake management team composed of

1.       Dr. Craig Smith, Consulting Ecologist  - Project Coordinator

2.       ReMetrix Corp, Dr. Mark Heilman – Team Leader

3.       Central Mich University – Water Research Center, Dr. Scott McNaught

4.       Progressive Engineers & Architects, Mr. Tony Groves, PE

 These individuals and organizations are providing advice and council to the Board on an ongoing basis as we work to accomplish the task of remediation of the Eurasian water milfoil in the lake.

 As we move forward, we also need to address the method of payment for the remediation activities.  The principal source of funds will be raised through a Special Assessment District.  The Board is working on determining the assessment role and there will be a public meeting on the development of that role.  After we go through another objection period on the assessment role, the Board will be prepared to raise the necessary funds and therefore be positioned to contract with some firm to implement a remediation plan.

 That is where we are and have been.  Tonight’s meeting is going to revolve around the methods of control that are available and the lake evaluations that are currently in process. This is not the meeting to talk about the financial aspects of what we are doing.  Not only are we studying what we are going to do, we are also studying how to fund the project.

 No decisions on either the remediation plan or the assessment district had been made.  We are studying both.  A final decision will be made after the respective public hearings.  However, it becomes evident that the special assessment district will fall on the four townships.  We do not yet know how much of those four townships will be included in the special assessment district. 

 We do not yet know if the assessment will be a fixed rate or based on the value of the property.  We do not yet know if there will be various classes of property.  These are all things that are in study and will be part of a public meeting that will take place after we have a remediation plan.

 Dr. Craig Smith, who received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin and is our lake manager, will speak on the nature of the problem and possible solutions.

 Also to make a presentation is Dr. Mark Heilman from ReMetrix Corporation.  He received his PhD from Notre Dame in aquatic ecology.  He will speak on the lake surveys that his firm is conducting.

- Dr. Smith began his presentation with a slide presentation on the nature of the Eurasian water milfoil (EWM) problem in Houghton Lake and why we need to be concerned about it. He also identified the kind of thing that can be done to manage the problem.

 The Eurasian water milfoil plant entered this country from Europe & Asia and has spread across North America.  It is especially prevalent in the northern tier of states.  Unlike our native plants, this plant grows up to the surface and spreads out in a way that our native plants don’t.  By doing that, it causes a major problem with boating, fishing and other recreational activities.  In addition to the ugliness of the plant at the surface of the lake and the wads of plant material that wash up on the shore, there are other less obvious problems that should be of greater concern in the long run.

 Houghton Lake like most lakes had a nice diversity of plant growth, which are important to the fishery, and other aspects of the lake.  Now we have huge area of Eurasian water milfoil that have crowded out the native species.  There is also a reduction in the quality of habitat.  The milfoil in developing a canopy has a variety of detrimental effects on the water column.  It causes the lowering of dissolved oxygen and causes increases in Ph levels at different times of the day.  All this makes less good habitat and it more difficult for things to live in the lake.

 We also have alterations in other things.  The density of the Eurasian water milfoil causes a build up of dead or dying plants in the sediment that leads to a release of more nutrients into the lake. The nutrient release then cause algae blooms in the lake.  If the milfoil is in the lake long enough, you have a change in the tropic dynamics which means the way things eat each other which results in changes in the fish population.  If this continues, you can expect to have large numbers of small pan fish that are all stunted and a reduced growth of game fish because of their inability to feed on the very small fish in the milfoil.

 The DNR has assured us that this situation has not yet developed, but it will happen if the growth of the milfoil continues.

 Luckily, Eurasian water milfoil is easier to control than some of the other non-native plants that are spreading through the country.  There are a variety of control techniques.  There are physical techniques like drawing down of water levels, there are harvesting, there is chemical and there is biological techniques  that use organisms to consume or disease the plant.

 In Houghton Lake, you do not have the ability to modify the lake level, so that’s not an option.

 Harvesting does not require a permit from DNR.  That advantage is balanced with several disadvantages.  The biggest disadvantage is an undesirable selectivity.

Selectivity is the ability to impact on the target plant, in this case the Eurasian water milfoil, without impacting on the surrounding plant or fish.  Any kind of control technique we select has to be selective.  We are not aiming to get the aquatic plants out of the lake – we are aiming to control the Eurasian water milfoil and allow the native plants to thrive. 

 The selectivity of harvesting is wrong for controlling Eurasian water milfoil.  You can’t control what you cut except by special selectivity.  You cannot cut in areas where there is little milfoil.  Or you can cut where it is dense, but you also take out any native plants that may be in that area.   After you cut an area, the plants that are going to do the best are the plants that grow the fastest.  That in most cases is the Eurasian water milfoil. 

 So if you harvest in an area of Eurasian water milfoil and native plants, after each cutting the milfoil will come back stronger.  That is the opposite of what you want to accomplish.  Therefore, we will not recommend large scale harvesting operations.  However, in Houghton Lake you have large masses of plant material that is dislodged by storm or wave action.  A harvester could be used to pick up this loose material.

 There are a number of chemical control techniques that could be used.  We have both systemic and contact herbicides.  Contact herbicides kill the part of the plant that they touch.  Systemic herbicides are compounds that translocate throughout the plant and thus are capable of killing the entire plant, including the roots.     There are two systemic herbicides that are used on Eurasian water milfoil.  One is fluridone, which is sold under the names of Sonar and Avast.  The second systemic herbicide is 2-4-D in granular form and is sold as Navigate or Aqua-Clean.  You may use 2-4-D in a liquid form to control your dandelions. 

 There are also contact herbicides that simply burn off the top of the plant. But do not kill it.  These would be of little use in Houghton Lake because we want to control the Eurasian water milfoil, not just burn the tops off.

 Like everything else, herbicides have good points and bad points.

 One of the pros of herbicides is that they are very effective.  Nothing is as effective as aquatic herbicides.  That is why people use them.  They control the target plants to a degree that no other method will.  They are reliable. We know when they work and how they work.  They may not work in every instance, but we can predict when they will and when they won’t.

 Floridone and 2-4-D are selective in that used properly, at the right concentration, they can control the target plant with little or no impact on other plant species.  They are also very rapid producing fast results.

 There are also drawbacks.  There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with putting chemicals in their lake.  The herbicides have been extensively tested, but as people point out, you cannot test for every last possible thing.  

 In defense of these herbicides, we routinely use in our daily life a lot of chemicals that fail the tests that these aquatic herbicides have passed.   We use gasoline, all kinds of household cleaners and a variety of things that are of greater risk to us.

There is some non-target impact.  Even though these herbicides are selective, none is perfectly selective.  There will be some damage to non-target species.

 There are water use restrictions.  There will be limits on when you can water your lawn using lake water or go swimming.  It is necessary to get a permit from the DEQ and in large lakes like Houghton Lake, getting that permit may not be trivial.

 The herbicide fluridone under the names of Sonar or Avast could possibly be used in the lake.  This is a systemic herbicide which is capable of killing the plant and used properly will kill only the Eurasian water milfoil.

 In Michigan, fluridone is used on a whole lake basis.  In other places it is used differently but it is very difficult to use on a spot basis.  You have to treat the whole lake on a very low dose rate.  Used on a whole lake basis, fluridone produces a dramatic reduction of Eurasian water milfoil. After a typical treatment, it would be difficult to find the target plant.

 There are some restrictions that limit the usefulness of fluridone in Michigan.  Michigan DEQ has let limits on the upper concentration of the herbicide.  We are restricted to 6 to 12 PPB (parts per billion).  What they are trying to do is to minimize the impact on non-target plants.  DEQ wants the native plants to survive during the year of treatment.

 There has been developed in the past year a test that will determine the PPB necessary to kill the Eurasian water milfoil in Houghton Lake. We can improve the success of our treatments by performing the test prior to treatment.  In a lake as large as Houghton, it would be unwise to proceed to treatment without doing the test.

 Dr. Smith presented some slides of other lakes that had herbicide and weevil treatment.

 The other systemic herbicide that could be used on Eurasian Water Milfoil is 2-4-D.  Unlike fluridone, 2-4-D is used for spot treatment. It requires an extremely precise application rate.  If you were to use an integrated control method, you could use 2-4-D in one part of the lake to get a faster control and weevils in another part of the lake.

 In addition to the herbicides, there are biological methods to control Eurasian water milfoil.  However, there is only one that has been turned into a commercial product, which is trademarked under the name “MiddFoil”.  The weevil is about the size of a sesame seed.  If you want to find them in the lake, you will have to look very hard.  They are not going to come out of the lake and bother you and will not create any other kinds of problems.

 The milfoil weevil was first found in a pond in Vermont. There was a natural crash of the milfoil in the pond.  The Eurasian water milfoil was dying off by itself.  When researchers went in to see what was happening, they found the dead or dying plants infested with this weevil.  This weevil is native to North America and it is unusual for a native insect to be a control agent for non-native plant specie.

 It is believed that the weevil developed on the northern milfoil, native to this country.  The weevil is aquatic but it spends its winter months on land and it eats only Eurasian water milfoil and northern water milfoil.  Sometime biological control has a bad name because there have been some bad experiences.  We do have enough experience to say that the MiddFoil will eat only two types of milfoil and will not attack other plants in the lake.

 The MiddFoil weevil has been used with success and one of the better successes has been near by in Lake St. Helen. Lake St. Helen is 2,400 acres and not very deep and is a lake which has a lot of Eurasian water milfoil where it looked like other control technique might not be appropriate.  They began a 5-year program in 1998 and stocked 13,500 weevils that year, stocked again in 1999 and again this year.

 In 1998 the milfoil decreased in all the sites and the weevil increased in most of the sites.  In 1999, the plant beds stocked in 98 did not return.  The damage to the Eurasian water milfoil in some of the sites was severe and eggs and larvae were found in half of the weed beds and three of the weed beds showed only mild damage.  So it worked in most of the weed beds but not all of them.  

 The weevil is a bio control agent. It works very differently from herbicides. It works slowly.  You have to be patient.  If your going to start a weevil project, you have to be prepared to be patient. In Big Whitefish Lake, they stocked weevils in the spring, there was an expansion of milfoil during the year and by years end they went to herbicides.  They didn’t give the weevil a chance to work.  If you use weevils you have to be patient.

 Additionally, the weevil will control the plants to a much lesser degree than the herbicide.  A herbicide like fluridone when applied to a whole lake will eliminate the milfoil to the point that it will be hard to find.  The weevil will leave behind a sizeable population of Eurasian water milfoil.  The weevil will not eat all of their food.

 You can expect that at least 20% of your current milfoil will remain in the lake with a biological control method.  The weevil will affect the buoyancy of the plant and much of it will fall to the bottom of the lake.

 What ever you use, it is important to point out the aquatic plant control is a long-term proposition. The problem in the lake is here and is here to stay.  In letters to the editor, there have been numerous statements about one time cost.  That is not the way to look at the problem in the lake.  It is something that will have to be addressed on a continuing basis. 

With herbicides there will have to be a large-scale treatment every 3 to 5 years with some activity in-between.  With the weevil, you’re going to need to stock for a number of years.  Most likely 4 to 5 years.

 The charm of weevils is that if we stock them for 4 or 5 years, we may be able to build up a large enough population that they will become self sustaining. However, no weevil project has lasted long enough to answer the question of long term sustaining populations.

 To recap.  If you use herbicides you can expect dramatic results.  It will be fast and a fairly low rate of failure, which can be predicted.  The will be a low to moderate non targeted impact on other species.  Because of the types of plants in Houghton Lake, you could expect a moderate non-targeted impact.  Because of the dramatic results you will get, people will get used to a treated lake and you will have a demand every 4 or 5 years for some action.

 With weevils you can expect a more moderate degree of control.   It will be slow but after time you should get to the point where about 20% of the milfoil currently in the lake will be left.  There is an unknown risk of failure.  We really don’t know how often they don’t work.  In about 15% of the lakes treated with weevils, the weevils don’t take hold. The biological methods have not had to do the same documentation to show that it works that the herbicide methods. 

If I were to guess, and it’s only a guess, I would think that there is a 2/3 chance they will work in Houghton Lake.   That is your risk.  However they may work and after 4 or 5 years they may be able to sustain themselves and you would not have to continue stocking.

 It is not my job or the job of my team to make specific recommendations.  It is our job to identify how bad the problem is and what you can do about it.  It is the job of this community to make the value judgments and decide what is best for your lake.

Dr. Mark Heilman had a power point presentation of the systems and procedures that are being used to monitor all aspects of the lake.  After his presentation, the floor was opened for questions.

 Question and Answers

 How do the weevils get on land for the winter and if you plant weevils in an area, how far do they spread? 

As part of the life cycle, the weevils will fly.  They don’t fly well and winds direct most of their flight.  They need to winter over on land and can fly well enough to get over the sea walls.  They do need leaf litter at the shoreline to survive and if weevils are used, residents must be encouraged not to rake or cut near the lakefront in the fall.  It is expected that the weevil will spread throughout the lake.

Can the weevil carry any virus? 

 We have never heard of any type of virus that would be carried by the weevil

 Comment:  The board is not elected and the speaker felt that people should closely follow county and township government to determine what they are doing.

 The statutes appear to have been created to take some of the politics out of the remediation process

 Do fish eat the weevils?                        Yes, but we do not know to what extent

How many lake front properties are on Houghton Lake?

 The speaker stated that there were more the 1500 lake front parcels. The county equalization department has now indicated that there are approximately 2148 lake front and  808 canal front property owners

 As a preventative measure, will we establish washing stations around the lake to prevent milfoil from being reintroduced?  Also can the lake level be reduced to help control the milfoil? 

In either Wisconsin or Minnesota, they instituted an extensive wash and monitoring program.  After several years of trial, the program was discontinued because it was very expensive to operate and was determined to be not very effective.  As to lake level, the level is controlled by court order.  To change to level of the lake would require action in Circuit Court

 If we go with an herbicide, will the fish be eatable and if kids drink any of the treated water while swimming, what is the impact?

 Fluridone is extremely non-toxic and will not have any effect on fish or animal life.  It affects only plant life.  The DNR, despite their opposition to fluridone, has done their own studies and have determined that the fish population is either positive or they were unable to detect any change.  As to drinking the water, the levels that are used in Michigan are below the drinking water levels set by the Federal government.  At the low levels used, it could be in the drinking water without problem.

 There would be a one-day swimming restriction set by the State.  That was established to keep people out of the way of those introducing the chemical into the lake. There is an irrigation restriction that is imposed.  It would not affect lawns but some plants could be affected

 How is the fluridone applied and what is the half-life in the environment?

 The fluridone is mixed with water and injected into the lake water.  The half-life varies depending on the time of year but in the summer it is about 3 weeks.  At the levels that are allowed for use in the lake, a relative long contact time is required.  Therefore after being applied, testing must be done to determine when and how much additional material needs to be injected into the lake to maintain the required PPB

 Comment:  There are other lakes in the area that are using chemicals.  Sanford Lake and Wixom Lake to our south are undergoing or will be undergoing treatment

 Are the rivers going to be treated?

 The Muskegon River will most likely get some of the wash out of the lake.  There has not been any discussion regarding treatment of other rivers

 Comment:  Based on the data presented by Dr Heilman, it appears that the milfoil is expanding at about 3% per year with milfoil in over half the lake.  I feel we must move quickly.

 Response:  We hear regularly that something must be done quickly.  This Board is moving as quickly as the law will allow.

 Meeting adjourned at 9:10 pm