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      Adirondack Council
 

      
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Released, Wednesday, November 20, 2002

BOLTON LANDING, NY -- Yet another state-protected plant species has been discovered here by divers in an area where state officials want to experiment with a chemical herbicide next spring, leading the Adirondack Park’s largest environmental organization to call for the site to be placed off-limits to treatment.

"The evidence continues to mount showing that the chemical herbicide fluridone and Lake George are not a good match," said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal. "Every time we look at this, we find another valuable natural resource that would be an unintended victim of chemical herbicide use. Lake George is the wrong place to begin experimenting with chemicals in the Park."

Houseal was referring to Neobeckia aquatica (a.k.a., Rorippa aquatica, or lake-cress), which was found by divers last fall at West Tongue Mountain Bay. In the nearly two years that have passed since the Lake George Park Commission requested a permit from the Adirondack Park Agency to treat the site with a chemical herbicide, the milfoil bed at West Tongue has virtually disappeared. At the same time, the diversity of native plants has increased, including the appearance of Neobeckia aquatica.

"This discovery was revealed during the final stages of the public hearing on the pesticide permit. Because the plant was never factored into the environmental assessment for this permit application, the discovery ought to be sufficient to eliminate West Tongue Mountain Bay from consideration for any chemical treatment," Houseal said. "We will urge the APA’s commissioners to drop this site altogether.

"The Department of Environmental Conservation’s approval for the registration of fluridone in New York prohibits its application anywhere rare, threatened or endangered plants are present," Houseal said. "To our knowledge, DEC has never approved the use of this chemical around rare, threatened or endangered species outside the Park. Why would the APA even consider using it around protected species inside the Park?"

At a public hearing in the village of Lake George in April, 2001, held by the permit applicant (the Lake George Park Commission), the LGPC’s consultant admitted that nearby native plants are likely to be killed as well.

"If it’s a choice between killing milfoil and saving native species, we’ll choose killing milfoil," said Kenneth Wagner, who is recommending placing more than 2,000 pounds of the chemical at four sites in Lake George.

"This simply reinforces our belief that chemical herbicides are an absolute last resort in dealing with undesirable, non-native plants," Houseal said. "If the APA had allowed this project to move forward last spring, as the LGPC wanted, we would have killed this Neobeckia aquatica plant before we knew it was there. So far, this is the only location in Lake George where it has ever been found."

Houseal said the Council would raise this point with the Adirondack Park Agency’s Board of Commissioners, when it meets to consider granting a permit for the use of the chemical herbicide fluridone. The APA may take up the permit application as early as its December 12 monthly meeting.

According to the US Dept. of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, Neobeckia aquatica has already become extirpated (extinct) in Maine and may already be gone from the waters of Massachusetts as well. It can still be found in three counties in Vermont, all in the Champlain Valley, where it is illegal to harm the plant. New York and Vermont environmental officials have listed the plant as "threatened." To make the threatened list, plants must number fewer than 3,000 individuals in the entire state, or be found at fewer than 20 locations statewide.

Houseal noted that testimony provided during the final weeks of the summer-long public hearing on LGPC’s permit request revealed that milfoil growth in both Paradise Bay and Moonlight Bay had also declined sharply, while native plants increased in number.

Fluridone has never been used in Lake George, or anywhere else in the Adirondack Park. It was registered with the federal government in 1986, but not approved for use anywhere in New York until 1995. Since that time, the Adirondack Park Agency has issued only permits for hand-harvesting and other non-toxic, non-chemical control methods.

Houseal said he also hoped to clear up a common misconception about the term "Sonar."

"The ‘Sonar’ we are discussing is not a harmless sound wave used by the Navy to locate underwater objects," Houseal said. "This Sonar is a brand name for the chemical poison fluridone, designed to kill underwater plants by destroying the plant’s ability to make food from sunlight. But it doesn’t just kill milfoil. It has the potential to kill or damage almost everything green in the test areas."

The Adirondack Council is an 18,000-member, privately funded, not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the natural character and human communities of the Adirondack Park through research, education, advocacy and legal action.