Weed Treatment Update
Traditionally each year the QQLA has funded ($9,000–$17,000) annually for invasive weed treatments on both ponds. This year our treatment plans have been interrupted.
Part of the process of the weed treatment program is to go through a process with the local conservation commissions to follow a state approved order of conditions (OCC). For years these OOC’s have been renewed and approved every three years and the cycle has continued without interruption for the last 20 years. We work with the Sturbridge conservation commission (ConCom) to get these OOC’s in place.
Part of the OCC includes a review and approval by the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program (NHESP), commonly known as National Heritage. This organization mandates the protection of endangered native wildlife and vegetation. Our approval from National Heritage hasn’t been updated for 21 years and the approval requires a botanical survey of both lakes (at substantial cost).
They will be doing a survey of our lakes this year (presumably by this fall). This means that our normal weed survey, that we have done each spring to determine where we need to treat (and with what chemicals) cannot be done until the National Heritage survey is completed and our OOC is approved. Consequently, our OCC will not be completed in time for use to proceed with any weed treatment this year.
The good news is that the weed treatment program that we have done over the past number of years, has resulted in a reduction in the number of invasive weeds. The bad news is that the process of renewing our OOC is very expensive. It means that although we will not spend money on weed treatment this year we will be spending more money on the OOC approval process which includes documentation, surveying, engineering and process filing than we would have spent on the actual weed treatment.
National Heritage is mainly concerned with Dwarf Bulrush, for more information click below