In ecosystems like Sylvia Lake, its growth is attracted to areas of nutrient-rich sediments. It is an opportunistic species that prefers highly disturbed lake beds and lakes that receive nitrogen and phosphorous-laden runoff, like from lawn fertilizers, etc. Warmer water temperatures promote multiple periods of flowering and fragmentation.

Saturday, September 4, 2004...Volunteers from the Sylvia Lake community, along with the Gouverneur Fire Department Dive Team, targeted the Eurasian Milfoil in Sylvia Lake for a four-hour systematic search and destroy. The team worked in areas where the milfoil had taken hold and was very obvious. Divers pulled the weeds and volunteers on the surface used nets to gather stray bits of the plant. Gale Ferguson submitted these photos of the activity.

September 18-19, 2004...divers, recruited by Dave and Faye Lockwood (their son Jonathan among them), worked to minimize the impact the exotic species, Milfoil, will have on Sylvia Lake. Thank you to the divers and to Dave and Faye for their efforts on our behalf.

While the weeding by the divers removes present growth, the clean up of floating parts is extremely important to prevent spread of the weeds. Windy conditions and a limited number of collection boats allowed the escape of some of the harvested milfoil.

You can still make an important contribution to the effort by cleaning up any vegetation when it floats to shore. Try to remove even the smallest fragments as they can attach and grow - looks like nice canoeing and kayaking weather for the rest of the week - please search the shoreline.

The Dive Masters were Tony Anderson and Carol Bloomquist. Tony owns a scuba shop and school http://www.phoenixscuba.com/ on Lake Erie. He trained most of the divers. Thank you, again, to the Lockwoods, for making this possible.