Wick: ProcellaCOR worked great

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Last June, after a fierce and protracted battle with the Lake George Association in both the court of law and the court of public opinion, the Lake George Park Commission got the go-ahead and treated invasive Eurasian watermilfoil with the aquatic herbicide ProcellaCOR in two Lake George bays.

A year later, The Chronicle asked Dave Wick, executive director of the Park Commission, how its application of ProcellaCOR has worked out.

“The project went exactly as the Commission anticipated,” Mr. Wick said.

“We could not find one surviving Eurasian watermilfoil plant in Sheep Meadow Bay 60 days post-treatment. And all the native plants remained, which is great.”

At Blair’s Bay, the other treatment site, he said there was 97.5% elimination of the invasive milfoil.

“The northern part of that treatment site, due to some dilution of the product, ended up coming back or really not being killed in its entirety,” Mr. Wick said.

He chalked it up to the fact that “the project got delayed by a couple years, and the field of milfoil expanded beyond what we were permitted to treat. So we had our hand harvest crew go in there and clear out the area just to the north of the Blair’s Bay treatment site.”

Mr. Wick said the Park Commission will not do any ProcellaCOR treatments this year “while we take a longer term look at those two treatment areas to make sure they’re holding up as well as they’re expected to.”

Explaining taking the year off, he said, “We have a pretty high standard here to make sure that everything that we’re doing is completely transparent and above board and we want to take a strong scientific look at it.

“There’s no immediate emergency to go and do any other treatments, so why don’t we do a deep dive into the one post-treatment year of these two sites and see what they look like, and hopefully there will be no rebound of any milfoil?”

He said, “If we can show that the native plants have completely rebounded and there’s no milfoil a year later, that just strengthens the record that we have here for ProcellaCOR being a very viable management tool for milfoil control in Lake George.”

Mr. Wick said the Park Commission is looking at the possibility of treating “a couple other sites” in 2026.

“Nothing’s been decided or even that thoroughly discussed yet, but we’ve been talking about Sunset Bay at Huletts and possibly Harris Bay in Queensbury.”

He said, “We only have maybe five to seven sites that we would consider for treatment — the ones that we’ve been harvesting year after year after year, and they continue to rebound, and sometimes even expand post treatment.

“So it’s those sites where we’re really looking at, do we want to take this different approach and see if we can get some control on that?”

Mr. Wick noted that treated sites don’t have to be re-treated in short order. “If any of the hundreds of treatments in the Northeast are any guide, one ProcellaCOR treatment tends to last for years.”

He emphasized, in the aftermath of last year’s treatment, “Our office and the Lake George Association have been working together. They’ve been doing their monitoring, we’ve been doing our monitoring.”

That’s notable because the organizations battled fiercely over the issue. The LGA sued to try to stop the LGPC’s use of ProcellaCOR, and rallied public sentiment through the “Not 1 Drop” campaign.

Mr. Wick, asked if the LGPC and LGA are now in a better relationship, said, “We are. I think we both kind of want to hit the reset button and start things fresh.”

In his interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Wick admitted he too was initially skeptical of ProcellaCOR’s efficacy.

“I personally was not a big fan of the previous aquatic herbicides, because they were non-selective and didn’t have a very good track record,” he said.

“That’s completely different with ProcellaCOR — it’s highly selective and has a tremendous track record.”

New LGA chief: We’re monitoring; no stance yet on future ProcellaCOR use

The Chronicle asked Brendan Wiltse, Ph.D., who became executive director of the Lake George Association in November, his view of last year’s use of ProcellaCOR in two lake bays.

“We are still doing ongoing monitoring in the bays, so I’m not going to take a position on that at this time,” said Dr. Wiltse.

“We did some plant and sediment sampling last year that’s been released publicly where we found the degradants of ProcellaCOR in plants and the sediments.

“And then we did some diver surveys later in the fall and some additional sampling, and we were out this spring sampling again, and we’ll be out in the bays throughout the summer and again into the fall to see what the medium term efficacy is of the treatments.”

He said it’s not surprising that the degradants are there, “but I think we still have questions about what that means. How long are the degradants going to persist in the sediments and are there any concerns related to their presence in the sediments?”

If the Park Commission were to seek the okay to apply ProcellaCOR next year, would the LGA support it?

“I think it’s too early to tell right now,” said Dr. Wiltse.

“We’re working in partnership with the Commission on understanding the efficacy of the treatments that occurred last year. We are hoping to work with them on an aquatic invasive species management plan for the lake…”

He said a management plan to counter Eurasian watermilfoil “would allow us to really look at the different management options that are available to us. Each of them has pros and cons. There’s many things to consider.

“Our focus is working with the Commission to have a common understanding of where and how we apply these different management tools to Lake George so that we’re most effective in protecting the lake.”

Speaking on the interplay between the two groups, Dr. Wiltse said, “I think we currently have a pretty good working relationship between both organizations. The LGA is committed to being a partner with the Park Commission moving forward and strengthening that relationship.”

He said, “I think Dave [Wick] and I have a good professional working relationship. We talk to each other regularly.” — Ben Westcott

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