Agencies involved with the Elodea eradication of three lakes in Nikiski have scheduled a community meeting for this week.
Cooperative Extension Services’ Janice Chumley said representatives from Alaska Fish and Wildlife Services, Department of Natural Resources, and other agencies from the Kenai Peninsula Cooperative Weed Management Area will be there to answer questions.
Chumley: “This is a community meeting for the residents that have been supportive and those that have questions about the eradication project in Beck Lake, Daniels Lake, and Stormy Lake. After going through quite a lot of hoops and permit processes the herbicide has been applied into those lakes, there’s been two treatments and there’s a third one scheduled.”
The sampling since then has showed there is a significant reduction in all three lakes, according to Chumley, although Stormy Lake still has the largest amount of elodea.
She said although no one likes the idea of using herbicides, the aim of eradicating the invasive plant is to protect resources.
Chumley: “A plant like this has the ability to take over all the spawning streams for salmon and as you know, salmon are very important to our community. We have a lot of jobs to do with that, we have subsistence foods that we need to have these good breeding areas for and Elodea can just clog that off and wreck a good fishery if people don’t do anything.”
That meeting will begin at 6 pm on Thursday, June 11, in the Nikiski Community Center.