LAKE HOSTS Make A Difference! We have had one SAVE in July 2008 - preventing invasive milfoil from entering the lake on a jet ski. Be sure to inspect your boats before entering or leaving a water body, and remove all plant material (away from the lake!).
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Our Lake Hosts provide courtesy boat inspections to prevent invasive species from entering Newfound Lake. They also show owners how to do their own inspections as they move their boats from one water body to another.
Many boaters ask if power washing is sufficient.
Amy Smagula, the DES Clean Lakes and Exotic Species Program Coordinator, is one of many experts who maintain that “good, old-fashioned visual inspection and hand removal of plant fragments is the best way to stop the spread of exotic plants.” Boats and trailers should be inspected both prior to launching and after coming out of a lake—even a seemingly “uninfested” lake. According to Amy, low pressure, cold water boat washing stations do NOT provide any additional benefit of milfoil or other plant removal from boats, trailers, or other recreational gear.
Boat washing stations originated in the states bordering the Great Lakes to stop the spread of zebra mussels. High temperature (140 degrees Farenheit or hotter) and high-pressure water is needed to remove zebra mussels and their veligers from boat hulls. For exotic plants, high or low pressure spraying will certainly wash plant fragments off most boat surfaces, but will do nothing for those pieces wrapped around propellers, trapped between boat and trailer, or tucked into other places.
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Does washing the boat remove all traces of plant material (potentially invasive species)? After considerable consultation with other lake associations and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES), we concluded that little if any benefit would come from a washing station and that a station may even have deleterious effects on our Newfound Lake environment. Amy Smagula, the DES Clean Lakes and Exotic Species Program Coordinator, is one of many experts who maintain that “good, old-fashioned visual inspection and hand removal of plant fragments is the best way to stop the spread of exotic plants.” Boats and trailers should be inspected both prior to launching and after coming out of a lake—even a seemingly uninfested lake. According to Amy, low pressure, cold water boat washing stations do not provide any additional benefit of milfoil or other plant removal from boats, trailers, or other recreational gear.
Boat washing stations originated in the states bordering the Great Lakes to stop the spread of zebra mussels. High temperature (140 degrees Farenheit or hotter) and high-pressure water is needed to remove zebra mussels and their veligers from boat hulls. For exotic plants, high or low pressure spraying will certainly wash plant fragments off most boat surfaces, but will do nothing for those pieces wrapped around propellers, trapped between boat and trailer, or tucked into other places.
