Oswego County, NY -- Spraying began Tuesday to kill acres upon acres of water chestnuts infesting the Oswego River. And while this should take care of the problem this year, county officials want to find a permanent solution to rid local waterways of the foul plants. “This (spraying) is just putting patches on the problem,” said Oswego County Legislature...
An air boat from Allied Biological piloted by Steve Wilson sprays water chestnut growth along the Oswego River near Battle Island State Park on Route 48 between Minetto and Fulton. Oswego County, NY -- Spraying began Tuesday to kill acres upon acres of water chestnuts infesting the Oswego River.
And while this should take care of the problem this year, county officials want to find a permanent solution to rid local waterways of the foul plants.
“This (spraying) is just putting patches on the problem,” said Oswego County Legislature Chairman Barry Leemann, R-Amboy. “We have to get other counties and the surrounding areas involved in this. This is a big Northeastern problem — not just an Oswego County problem.”
So Leemann contacted the Central New York Regional Planning Board to talk about ways to attack the larger problem.
David Bottar, the regional board’s executive director, agreed.
“This has been an issue in counties throughout Central New York and Upstate New York” and the planning board is doing research to see how best to deal with it, he said.
Bottar said the board is taking a three-prong approach. First, it will find out where water chestnuts are the biggest problem in Upstate New York. Second, it will find communities that have successfully fought the plant. Third, it will look for federal money to help combat the problem.
“I will meet with Barry shortly,” Bottar said. “We need to work on this as a regional effort.”
Tuesday, an airboat with two Allied Biological workers skimmed up the west shore of the river spraying a chemical into the massive mats of chestnuts. Allied, with an office in Otsego County, is an aquatic habitat management company.
John DeHollander, director of the Oswego County Soil and Water Conservation Office, said the men were using Rodeo, which is an aquatic version of common herbicide Roundup.
“It reacts with the chlorophyll part of the plant,” DeHollander said. “It goes in and reacts with the plant, suffocating it within 10 to 14 days. It will slowly wilt, it might change color.”
The most important part of the spraying, though, is what it does to the chestnuts of the plant. The nuts have to be destroyed so the plant will not regenerate next year.
“You have to kill this nut crop and with the spraying, the (chestnuts) turn to mush,” DeHollander said.
Spraying Tuesday began near Minetto and headed south toward Fulton. In some areas, the chestnuts have spread from the shore almost half way across the river.
Robert Tetro has lived in a riverside house in Granby for about 11 years. He said the chestnuts are worse this year than ever.
“I’ve had to keep it cut — I have my own cutter and I cut out 20 to 25 feet so we can go out to kayak,” he said.
The chestnuts look like green blankets stretching out into the water on the west side of the river from south of Fulton to close to Oswego. DeHollander said they are spreading more into the boating channel, although he said no boats have been hampered by the plants.
DeHollander said it is important to continue spraying year after year because some of the chestnuts and seeds can drop to the bottom of the water and remain dormant. Then a year or so later, they can come to life and grow more plants.
“We have to eliminate that seed source,” he said.
He said the water chestnuts flourished more this year with the hot weather.
Leemann said the legislature at first voted not to fund the spraying, but then received abut $60,000 in federal money to pay for the spraying this year.
Spraying should continue today.
Contact Debra J. Groom at dgroom@syracuse.com, 470-3254 or 251-5586.