Aquatechnex biologists will be moblizing to map remaining Eurasian Milfoil present in the Lake Pend Oreille and Pend Oreille River system this week. Bonner County has been managing one of the largest Eurasian Milfoil control programs ever attempted in the Western United States. In 2005, this weed infested over 4,000 acres along 90 miles of lake and river shoreline. Using funds provided by the Idaho State Legislature through the Idaho Department of Agriculture, the County has performed three years of treatments targeting this invasive aquatic weed.
Aquatechnex first mapped these infestations in the summer of 2005. Those maps were instrumental in helping the State understand the extent of the problem during legislative sessions that resulted in the first funding cycle of $4 million to combat Eurasian Milfoil. The maps were also instrumental in building and implementing the first treatments on the lake conducted by Aquatechnex in 2006. Since that time, Mississippi State University has been conducting aquatic plant monitoring and mapping.
At the end of the 2008 treatment season, it was determined that a better understanding of exact conditions present in the system would be necessary to build the grant application and treatment program for 2009. After three years of management in this complex system, the milfoil populations have been signficantly reduced, but smaller more localized patches remain that need to be the focus of next year’s efforts.
Aquatechnex will use a combination of our Aerial Shoreline Analysis (ASA) technology and boat survery. We have received aerial imagery collected by the County in late October and digitized approximate aquatic plant bed coverage into a ArcGIS project file. We will also fly an ASA mission using our Nikon GPS camera system. This technology and our flight protocols result in high resolution GPS corrected digital images that move directly into ArcGIS where collected. We will then move onto the water with portable ArcGIS computers and correct the boundaries of the plant communities to submeter accuracy and key out the plant species present.
We will be working on the Lake and River the remainder of this week and early next week, bringing that data back to the mapping facility to create final maps and a report to the County.
