Opening the Public’s Eyes to Spraying at Gaston

Earlier this spring I was alerted by a concerned angler about a group called the Lake Gaston Weed Control Council. I watched news reports and read postings on various websites about chemical spraying at Gaston to eliminate hydrilla. Not knowing much about chemical spraying, I contacted Chris Horton, BASS National Conservation Manager. He told me he would work with me on the issue and set up a meeting between us and the weed control council. We finally got around to that meeting Friday December 3^rd.

Whenever I used to hear the word "chemical spraying" in relation to bass fishing I would be ready to get in the ring and put up my dukes. I went into this meeting ready to fight for the fish and protect the sport I love. To my surprise though, none of the weed control council’s members were red and scaly or had long pointy tails or horns, or wore T-shirts that said "Kill and Destroy". Also to my surprise there were fishermen on the weed control council. They were actually nice people that had a problem and were doing the best they could to handle it. Their main problem is a weed called hydrilla blocking landowners from using their docks to access the lake. Hydrilla is a lot like chocolate. A little is good, some is OK, but a ton of it makes for a bad situation. Remember that hydrilla is an exotic invasive species, just like the snakehead. And although it has some positive effects on bass, too much of it throws off the predator/prey relationship in the food chain. Since the weed control council decided to spray chemicals to eliminate the weeds, it has become a major issue, especially with anglers. Admittedly as an angler, the last thing I want to see when I’m fishing a bank is someone coming up the other way with a spraying boat. The first thing I want to do is pull up the trolling motor and find another spot on the lake. However, I was enlightened to find that the chemicals that are being applied aren’t harmful to the fish at all if applied correctly.

According to Gary Martel, Chief of Fisheries for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, "Most people are scared of the chemicals and don’t realize that they are short-lived." They are also the most cost effective solution to the problem as well. Other methods have been tried, but have failed. Mechanical removal of hydrilla has proven to cause sprigs that attach themselves to other boats that go to other lakes and cause the same problem. Grass carp is another method of getting rid of hydrilla, but are most of the time ineffective and are considered a "last resort".

I had many people ask what the law is in reference to chemical spraying in our lakes. First of all, the Virginia Department of Agriculture has the responsibility of aquatic weed control in Virginia. The law says however that it depends on the lake as to what the regulations are for chemical spraying. If it is a department owned (VDGIF) lake, you cannot legally spray anything. However, if it is a company owned lake, (Lake Gaston is owned by Dominion Power) it is up to the company to determine the spraying regulations.

The main two chemicals that are used to fight hydrilla are Fluridone (also known as "Sonar") and Komeen which is a copper based chemical. Each year bids are taken by the weed control council for both the buying of the chemicals and the application. Cygnet Enterprises, Inc. out of Statesville, North Carolina is one of the companies that has supplied chemicals to the council. According to their Southern Region Manager Eric Barkemeyer, fluridone was passed by the EPA when the EPA wasn’t passing anything, "It is a very benign chemical." He said it dissipates within days and komeen within hours. However he stressed komeen shouldn’t be over sprayed. He said you can both swim in and drink the water from lake water sources after these are applied. What many people don’t realize is that chemicals are applied to both your swimming pool and drinking water to make it safe for humans and these chemicals are no more harmful than them. These chemicals target only the hydrilla, not the fish. When I asked him if the fish move away after these chemicals are applied, he told me fish could temporarily move away when komeen is sprayed, but when "sonar" is sprayed, they shouldn’t move at all. For more information on these chemicals, you should visit www.apms.org.

If a landowner legally hires someone to spray around their dock for them, they are supposed to let the weed control council know so they can take them off the list. This saves the council time and money. The biggest problem at least for the fish is so called "moonlight spraying". Some landowners who are sick of waiting for the weed control council to spray around their docks will go down and spray whatever they think will kill the weeds in the water, then in turn, not tell anyone what they’ve done. The issue there is when the spraying boat comes through the same area the next day, all of a sudden you have an area that has a double dose, which is detrimental to fish and other aquatic species. The weed control council is trying to make it very hard on people who do this. Their website will have spraying schedules and locations where people can check to see when and where their section will be sprayed. By the way, the sprayers are calibrated carefully to make sure they do not over spray and the boat operator is a graduate of N.C. State with a degree in fisheries according to Eric Barkemeyer of Cygnet.

The weed control council doesn’t have enough money to spray the whole lake. The weed control council doesn’t want to spray the whole lake. They know that some hydrilla is a good thing. The model that was presented to the council by BASS was one created by the success story of Lake Guntersville in Alabama. Chemical spraying was dealt with there some years ago and the solution has become a huge success story. It focused on spraying mainly around the landowners’ docks. It makes sense especially because the landowners are the ones who have a problem with the weeds and the council doesn’t have the money to spray the entire infected area anyway. It also allows docks to be accessed by anglers looking for bass under them. The solution seems to be where to spray, not how much. The idea seemed to go over well with the council’s members.

Before the meeting, a survey was given out to both landowners and bass fishermen concerning chemical spraying for hydrilla and other exotic species that asked a variety of questions. Both the landowners and bass fishermen agreed that protecting the resource and water quality was a big issue. At that meeting over 20 biologists, BASS representatives from the national and state levels, representatives from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and others came to reach a resolution only to find that they want the same thing, a great place to enjoy the outdoors that is safe.

So here’s where we are folks. Our drinking water is treated with chemicals and so are our swimming pools. We have to take safe steps to deter exotic invasive species from our waters. The Lake Gaston Weed Control Council has decided to form a committee of national experts in fisheries, biologists and other areas to make sure they are doing the job the right way. In fact I think they wish they’d have thought of it sooner, to avoid bad public relations. One of the board members will be a representative from Virginia BASS as well as one from North Carolina. There are more meetings scheduled to ensure the Lake Gaston Weed Control Council is moving in the right direction. I don’t remember who the concerned angler was that wrote me informing me of the weed control council, but I’ll bet he didn’t think it would turn out as well as it has so far. It’s time to move on.

Tad Phipps

State Conservation Director

VA BASS