Water District officials look out for invasive plants that might hitch a ride with fishermen.
AUBURN – Inspections of boats, trailers and fishing gear entering Lake Auburn began this weekend in an attempt to raise awareness and educate the public about invasive aquatic plants.
Biologists have identified milfoil in Lake Auburn, Thompson Lake and other lakes and ponds in Androscoggin County. Water District officials fear more milfoil or other invasive species could be introduced into area lakes by plant fragments on boats and trailers. Some boats entering area lakes have been in the waters of other states.
The inspection program is designed to raise public awareness and educate boaters so that inspections to check for plants becomes voluntary and routine.
“We are going to be having plant patrol inspectors on the weekends at Lake Auburn,” said Mary Jane Dillingham, the water quality manager for both the Auburn Water District and the Lewiston Water Division. Lake Auburn is the water supply for both cities
Dillingham said five of seven people trained for plant patrol are working at Lake Auburn.
It will be virtually impossible to check every boat entering the lake when boat traffic is high, she said.
“What we don’t want to do to is hinder any boaters from accessing the lake quickly. These are courtesy inspections. If it gets too busy we may have to overlook some,” Dillingham said.
Inspectors will record which states boats are registered in and ask boaters if they’ve ever heard of invasive aquatic plants.
“It will give the program information on travel and use patterns of boaters, which will help identify which Maine lakes are the most vulnerable to infestation,” Dillingham said.
“If we find a plant fragment on a boat or trailer we’ll help the owner take the fragment off, and we’ll send it over to the Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program,” she said.
Voluntary removal of plant fragments lessens the chances that boaters would be fined for transporting invasive species. Maine law outlaws the introduction, transportation, sale and cultivation of 11 invasive aquatic plants.
A major concern, in addition to milfoil, is hydrilla, which is considered one of the most aggressive invasive aquatic plants in the world. It was discovered in Pickerel Pond in Limerick last summer. Prior to that, the northernmost known infestation in the eastern United States was in a single small pond in Massachusetts. First discovered in U.S. waters in Florida in the 1960s, the plant that is native to Africa and Australia was first imported in the 1950s as an aquarium plant.
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