Kokua Line
Kokua Line
Lake Wilson cleanup
is duty of state
Land DepartmentQuestion: Who can we call to have the humongous amount of floating trash that has overtaken Lake Wilson in Wahiawa removed? Several boats came over a month ago and removed a small portion of the floating weed, but they never returned to remove the rest of it. Meanwhile, it continues to propagate and endangers all the fish in the lake. We have all kinds of fish in the lake, along with turtles, koi and a family of ducks. If allowed to continue, it will soon reach proportions that will be too costly or impossible to remove. What agency is responsible for keeping this environmentally safe?
Answer: The state Department of Land & Natural Resources has taken responsibility for getting rid of the salvinia infestation because it oversees the lake's fisheries, and "if it gets too bad, it can create a fish kill," said aquatics specialist Glenn Higashi, of DLNR's Aquatic Resources Division.
Aquatics officials are aware of the salvinia, which came in around the same time the water hyacinths did a few years ago, he said, and are monitoring it to make sure the plant doesn't cover the lake entirely.
The fact that the lake is rich in nutrients, partly from the discharge of treated sewage from the city's Wastewater Treatment Plant, as well as Hawaii's mild tropical climate, doesn't help.
Floating plants like salvinia extract nutrients from the water, Higashi said, "so it does grow well" in Lake Wilson.
The salvinia "was OK at first," but then it "went crazy and started blooming all over the place," he said. "We gathered up a lot of it but then find it's been blooming again."
Aquatics personnel on boats had used oil booms earlier to gather and enclose the salvinia in one area.
"Right now, we're working on methods of extracting it from the lake," because there's only so much that can be done manually, Higashi said.
The city has been contacted about bringing in heavy equipment to help gather the salvinia.
However, permission for access will have to be requested from nearby condominium owners because access to the lake will have to be through their property.
A big help would be if Mother Nature cooperated and sent "a lot of rain," Higashi said. Rain would raise the water level, and "a lot of (the salvinia) would go over the spillway" and down to the ocean, where it would be killed by the sea water.
In fact, patient gathering by hand and normal washing away in the spillway was how the water hyacinths were eliminated over a two-year period two years ago.
The bad news is that there are signs of their reappearance, Higashi said.
Mahalo
To a very kind lady who lives on Hokuili Street in Mililani. She saw me fall on the corner of Hokuili and Hokuala streets about 7:15 a.m. Friday, Oct. 25, helped me up and took me home in her car. I did not get her name, but I am so grateful to her. -- Lily Wuerdeman
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Useful phone numbers
Got a question or complaint?
Call 529-4773, fax 529-4750, or write to Kokua Line,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. As many as possible will be answered.
E-mail to kokualine@starbulletin.com