Water Chestnut Monitoring: Volunteers Needed!

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Last year GBLC received permission from the town’s conservation commission to monitor and remove invasive water chestnut plants from Lake Mansfield that were discovered in 2021. Industrious volunteers successfully removed ten 5-gallon buckets full of water chestnut plants in early summer before they went to seed. While most of the plants were concentrated along the shore in the northwest corner of the lake, small clumps were found as far as 1,000 feet from the main colony. 

Volunteers will be needed to pull and monitor again this year, to prevent future spreading. Woods Pond in Lee has become fully covered with water chestnut, so the threat of expansion at Lake Mansfield is ominous. Monitoring can be as simple as paddling slowly and looking for the rosettes of leaves. Removal involves careful pulling, collection, and drying of the plants. Please email Dale Abrams (abramsdale@gmail.com) if you are interested in lending a hand. 

You can help! Lake Mansfield volunteers are needed to remove this plant by hand pulling as soon as they emerge in the spring. Please let us know if you’d like to bring a boat and lend a hand with stewardship efforts this year and beyond. Visit www.GBLand.org to get involved.

Water Chestnut pulled out of the water-ways