RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Boats skimmed Lake Wilson yesterday, corralling the pesky weed that is infesting the waters. Piles of the weed have been dredged up for disposal at the Wahiawa State Freshwater Park.
‘Green monster’ The cost of battling the Salvinia molesta weed, the so-called "green monster" that has covered nearly 300 acres of Lake Wilson, is mushrooming to $1.25 million and could go higher.
sucks down cash
Saving Lake Wilson from weeds
will cost at least $1.25 millionBy Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.comAlready, $100,000 of a $150,000 federal grant has been spent just since last week when the city began an intensive effort to remove salvinia from a staging area near Funston Gate, state and city officials said yesterday.
The officials also announced that $500,000 in state Health Department funds is being released, and if the City Council approves, the city will kick in another $500,000 from federal Community Development Block Grant money to battle the alien species.
That is in addition to about $100,000 spent between July and December in an unsuccessful effort to control the weed.
"I don't think we have an option. We have to keep fighting until we can see the lake again," said City Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents the area and plans to fly to Washington D.C. to seek more federal money to battle the pest.
"We are moving forward. We are making progress," said Peter Young, director of the state Department of Land & Natural Resources.
The state opened another front against the weed yesterday and began scooping up the salvinia from a staging area in the parking lot of the Wahiawa State Freshwater Park.
About a dozen maintenance workers from the Department of Transportation and conservation officers in boats from the DLNR used oil containment booms to move the salvinia to a place near shore where a large scooper could lift the plant into trucks.
As they worked, patches of open water became visible in the lake.
Piles of salvinia are drying in the parking lot. They will eventually be taken to a mulching area on Dole Hawaii farmland.
The state and city workers may also begin working overtime including weekends in the battle against the weed.
Next week, if proper approvals can be obtained, Army engineers from Schofield Barracks will begin scooping out salvinia from a third location.
RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
A truck dumped a load of salvinia removed from Lake Wilson yesterday. State and city workers may begin working overtime to battle the infestation.
The state hopes to take out about 600 to 900 cubic yards of salvinia a day from the three sites, enough to open about six to nine acres of lake per day. The state is considering staging up to five excavation sites.
In addition, the state Department of Agriculture began spraying an herbicide approved for use in fresh water in locations away from homes. Using boats, workers sprayed about 28 acres over the last two days and hope to spray about 50 acres of salvinia a week.
Once sprayed, the salvinia should start turning yellow or brown within a week and should die in about two weeks, said Lyle Wong, who is in charge of the spraying. He said the herbicide and the dying and decaying salvinia won't harm the fish.
The state also may bring in an airboat from Florida at a cost of about $100,000 to help spray the herbicide.
"There's no need to take all of it (salvinia) out," Wong said. "All we need to do is open up open water so the lake doesn't crash during the summer months. Once we open up that open water, then it's a matter of an orderly cleanup of the lake that could take a year or two."
How much the long-term cleanup and maintenance of the lake will cost and who will pay for it is still being discussed, said Eric Hirano, chief engineer for the DLNR.
"It depends on whether the resources are there. If they are not there, we are going to have to find them," he said.
Hirano said a rough estimate may likely be $200,000 a year, based on the $100,000 the state spent during the last six months of last year.
State officials say they did what they could last year with the resources they had, but the salvinia still raged out of control.
Young said the state realizes it did not do enough but is now aggressively attacking the problem.
Hawaii Department of Health
Department of Land and Natural Resources
