Report by Bob and Pat Spaulding:

On Saturday of June 28, Pat and I visited some lakes in Van Buren and Cass county to see how they were coping with their Eurasian Milfoil problem.  It turns out that the Sister Lakes and Indian Lake have already established special assessment districts to deal with this foreign invader.  We noticed that their water clarity was excellent while Paw Paw Lake was experiencing an algae bloom resulting in a greenish cast to the water.  There was no evidence of weeds washing up on shore or emergent mats of weeds in the lakes we visited.  We asked some people on Indian Lake how their weed treatment was working out.  The term they used to describe their result was "excellent".  An early emergent herbicide was applied in March as a whole lake treatment funded by their special assessment district.  This is the second year of the program and the lake appears to be very healthy.  The riparian owner we talked to said that bluegills were spawning in front of his house as they always have and that he did not see one dead fish at any time after the weed treatment.  This is the second year of the treatment program and the lake resident said that he was ready to "give up" on the lake because he was hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of Milfoil before the treatment began.  He said that he no longer has to haul weeds.   Our current treatment is applied after megatons of Milfoil are allowed to develop which results in nutrients being released into the water triggering algae blooms.  The concept of knocking off the Milfoil before it develops seems to be a winner to me.  I encourage others to visit Indian Lake and see the benefits of collective whole lake treatment. 

Bob Spaulding