The following is extracted from the website of the company hired to do professional hand harvesting of milfoil on Brant Lake, Aquatic Invasive Management.
2010 Progress Report
Week 1 - May 17th - 21st
8 Divers, 2 Topwater
Grassville Road area north to Point O Pines completely covered, 3 bags harvested (67 lbs). Plants were mostly old and had wintered over and were beginning to produce new growth.
Sunset Cove covered. Plants found along the rocky shallows near Point O Pines and in the center of the cove between the rock shoal and shore. Many small plants harvested. 3.5 bags total (78 lbs)
Cove north of Sunset covered as well as shoreline heading north. 4 bags harvested, mostly small growth (90 lbs).
Northern shoreline swim begun up to Well's Island. 2.5 bags harvested, mostly small plants. (46 lbs).
All in all an excellent week. Our first use of underwater communications in the field has proven its effectiveness. The team was able to move faster, stay better organized and make quick changes in swim strategy without confusion.
Week 2 - May 24 - 28
8 Divers, 2 Topwater
Majority of North End swims completed with some work remaining for Week 3 in late June. Three significant beds harvested with a combined total of 133 bags removed from said beds (just under 3,000 lbs). Beds were located as follows: the point NW of the bridge, the point with rocky shoal in far NW end of the lake, and the middle of Big Rock Cove approx. 75 yards of shore.
Work remaining: Far NW shallows, remainder of Big Rock Cove, western shorelines w/ previously harvested beds, and re-swimming of dense areas harvested in Week 2.
In conclusion, all known affected areas on the lake have been hand-harvested by AIM or matted by the BLA (Brant Lake Association), meaning that our management strategy is shifting into maintenance swims. Sunset Cove once took a week and a half to cover (2009) and this year took only a day and a half.
Week 3 - June 28 - July 2
Map showing work doneWeek 4 - July 26 - July 30
This past week we started at the southern point of the Grassville Road area and worked north covering the bay south of point o pines. Covering this entire area we harvested 3 bags.
Then we skipped over to the point North of the Boys Camp and worked north, covering the shoreline all the way to the rock shoal off the point by Mark Lustik's house. 19 bags harvested.
From there we swam the central area, the rock shoal and the shoreline of Sunset Cove for a total of 3 bags.
We then swam the two bays heading North from the Aalmans beach where we beach our boat. 1 bag
We finished up by swimming the southern point and shoreline of Big Rock where we also found an isolated patch out from the littoral zone dropoff on the southern point of the bay (5 bags). We also hit the small rock pile area off the point east of Terry Lynch's (1/4 bag).
31.25 bags total (703 lbs)
The lake is looking good. I think with continuous pressure this season we will have it in full on maintenance mode for 2011.
Additional scheduled work:
- Week 5 - Sept 6 -10
2009
8 Divers, 2 Topwater
In late May of 2009 AIM returned to Brant Lake with an eight diver crew. The focus was immediately on Sunset Cove and finishing what was started in 2008. In the first two weeks of work the crew harvested 196 bags for a total weight of 4,410 lbs. 132 of those bags were taken out of Sunset Cove. This early in the growing season the plants were small and low growing, meaning that these amounts represent a massive quantity of individual plants. The Sunset Cove area was 100% covered by the AIM dive team and new areas of the lake were being attacked all within a two week time-frame. The crew would return for four additional weeks throughout the season and managed to clear many new, dense sites and swam over all affected areas of the lake. In addition, the areas previously cleared by the team were re-swam (such as Sunset Cove) to remove re-emergent growth and fragments.
2008
4 Divers, 2 Topwater
AIM first appeared on Brant Lake in 2008 with a six person crew. The immediate priority area was identified as Sunset Cove, a large, wide littoral zone with heavy boat traffic. The area was identified as the most likely source for fragmentation and increased spread of milfoil throughout the lake. The AIM crew spent three weeks working in Sunset Cove and a bay just south of the Point o' Pines Girl Scout Camp. The milfoil was dense and picking was difficult due to a large amount of growth in a rocky shoal where roots wedged deep into hard crevices. Definite progress was made, but everyone knew that the area needed more attention in 2009.
The Brant Lake Association had already formed a volunteer effort to combat the milfoil infestation under the leadership of Luc Aalmans. The volunteers located dense sites, placed benthic barrier mats and compiled information to improve future efforts. Without their efforts the problem would have been far worse when AIM got involved.