By Greta Solsaa/VTDigger
On Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 20, more than 75 local residents from Wells, Poultney and other nearby towns packed into the town of Wells town clerk’s office or joined online for a meeting held by the Vermont Dept. of Environmental Conservation.
The crowd had gathered to learn more about a draft decision by the state to allow Lake St. Catherine Association and SOLitude Lake Management to continue the use of the herbicide ProcellaCOR (florpyrauxifen-benzyl) to target the invasive species called Eurasian watermilfoil on Lake St. Catherine.
Most public commenters spoke in support of the renewing the permit, asserting their belief in “evidence-based science” and that the lake has improved with the use of ProcellaCOR and the lake association’s volunteer work.
But, the room erupted into cheers when David Emmons — the former president of the Lake St. Catherine Conservation Fund and a previous member of the Lake St. Catherine Association — finished his speech advocating against the permit, brandishing a list of 100 previously EPA-approved chemicals.
“The EPA has approved a lot of chemicals over the years and then banned them later on,” said Emmons.
Kevin DeSanto, resident of Wells and owner of Wellness Fishing Adventures, which leads fishing expeditions on Lake St. Catherine, received similar applause, echoing Emmons call for a moratorium on the use of ProcellaCOR until further long-term study can be conducted.
“We didn’t think they were going to approve the new permit,” said DeSanto. “That’s why we’re in an uproar.”
‘Spot treatment’
Situated near the Western border of Vermont, Lake St. Catherine stretches between the towns of Wells and Poultney and is a popular site for swimming, fishing, boating and camping for locals and tourists alike.
The 800-plus-acre body of water has been plagued with the aggressive and harmful milfoil since the 1970s, said Jeffery Crandell, an association trustee and chair of its milfoil control program.
“The lake was crystal clear. Native plants were providing a robust habitat for both fish and wildlife, and milfoil changed all that. It’s one of the most invasive non-native plants you’ll ever see,” said Crandell. “It virtually eliminated our native plants, which are so important to the environment and the health of the lake. It decreases light penetration, it affects oxygen levels, it increases sedimentation.”
Jerremy Jones, a lake association board member who works on the Milfoil Control Program, said in an interview that the association has attempted to eradicate milfoil through a variety of means, including harvesting machines that exacerbated the milfoil problem instead.
The LSCA determined that diver assisted suction harvesting with the ProcellaCor used as a “spot treatment” is the most effective management strategy, Jones said, and in the past year the milfoil has decreased to the lowest level since the early 2000s.
But, Emmons and DeSanto said they are concerned about the impact of the herbicide on wildlife based on anecdotal evidence of species diversity decline around the lake, and the use of herbicide treatments’ impact on tourism, recreation and property values.
“There’s never been a study done, so anecdotal evidence says that there is a devastating impact happening, but nobody’s studying it, so you can’t quantify it,” said Emmons, in an interview.
Emmons pointed to a recent study contracted by the Lake George Lake Association in New York. It found that use of ProcellaCOR killed a large amount of the milfoil and the herbicide was not detected in the water after 24 hours. But, the ProcellaCOR degradants spread past applied areas, were measured in the lakebed sediments, and adhered to native plants for at least three days.
Other effective techniques for addressing Lake St. Catherine’s milfoil such as suction dredging and aeration with bio-remediation, Emmons said.
“You can’t arrive at any finding that says this is safe for the environment. You can’t arrive at any finding that says this is safe for humans. You cannot claim that there’s no non-chemical alternatives, because there are non-chemical alternatives, and so every chemical treatment that’s ever been done in Lake St. Catherine is a violation of the public trust,” said Emmons.
In response, Jones and Crandell said the suction dredging and aeration with bio-remediation was not feasible because it would be too expensive and disruptive to native species. They said they consider the milfoil problem a greater threat to tourism on the lake than the herbicide usage.
Olin Reed, who leads aquatic nuisance control permitting for the Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s Lakes and Ponds Management and Protection Program, said the EPA-approved herbicide has been used 31 times in 11 lakes or ponds in Vermont since 2018 and ProcellaCOR is the only aquatic herbicide currently permitted in Vermont.
While there have not been long-term studies specifically conducted on Lake St. Catherine, Reed said the herbicide has gone through extensive evaluations by Vermont government agencies before its use was allowed in the state. ProcellaCOR is considered “practically non-toxic” at the level permitted by the state — between 5.79 to 9.65 parts per billion per acre foot, which is less than 20% of the amount allowed by EPA regulations, he said.
“The active and inert compounds have been reviewed by the Vermont Department of Health, and they’ve determined that there’s no impact on human health,” said Reed. “It’s also been reviewed by state environmental toxicologists — the active and inert compounds — and again, it’s shown to be a low risk for any sort of impact on fish or invertebrates or animals.”
Comparison to Lake Bomeseen
A similar conversation cropped up last year when locals protested the use of ProcellaCor on Lake Bomoseen, but the DEC denied the permit request in that instance. Emmons said that decision was the result of “well-organized pushback” by citizens that he hopes can be replicated for Lake St. Catherine.
But, Jones said the reason the Lake Bomoseen Association’s permit request was denied was because they did not articulate a long-term management strategy that met the DEC permitting criteria.
“If you look at our permit, we were very careful to talk about exactly what our plan is, what we’ve done over the years, our results and how well our control program has worked,” said Jones. “That’s why ours was approved and theirs was not. It had nothing to do with ProcellaCOR.”
Reed said the Lake St. Catherine Association’s plan is more measured, and only seeks to use the herbicide on a little over 3% of the total lake. He said the five-year permit still requires continual check-ins with the state, and the association has been successful at continually reducing its use of the herbicide over the years.
Pat Suozzi, president of the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds, favors the lake association’s integrated management plan, emphasizing that ProcellaCor is specifically targeted to milfoil and is not a contact herbicide like the commonly-known Round-up.
“It actually is a substance that the plants take up by their roots, and it disrupts the growth processes of the plant, so it sort of over-stimulates the plant, and because it gets over-stimulated, it dies,” said Suozzi in an interview. “I think it’s important to understand that, and because it’s targeted to the growth processes of that specific plant, it doesn’t have an effect on people.”
DeSanto, the fishing guide, said in an interview that he was also concerned about the herbicide’s impact on fish populations, as it was applied during spawning season on June 4 of this year, when diver assisted suction harvesting was not allowed until after July 1, after the spawning season.
Reed said in an interview that the reason herbicide treatment is “allowed that early is because there’s not an immediate concern for fish spawning,” whereas DEC considers the non-chemical harvesting method to immediately disrupt fish habitats because it’s “basically a big lawnmower in the water.”
DeSanto and others at the meeting also spoke to concerns regarding the size of the postings notifying the public of the chemical treatments, worrying that children and tourists would not notice the postings and unknowingly swim in the lake during the herbicide treatment period.
Reed said the permit was amended so the required size of the signage will increase and treatments can only occur on Mondays or Tuesdays, allowing the herbicide to dilute in the water before the weekend.
Jenny Austen, the program manager of the DEC Lakes and Ponds Management and Protection program, said in an interview that after careful review of the management strategy proposed by the lake association and SOLitude Lake Management, she is confident of the safety and efficacy of permitting the use of ProcellaCOR on Lake St. Catherine.
“As a concerned citizen myself, I was skeptical at first about the use of any chemicals in our waters,” said Austen. “It’s really meant to be a tool in the toolbox of a much larger management effort. It’s a balancing act, and there’s a lot of care that’s taken in deciding when and where and how these chemicals are used.”
