On a recent hot day in late May, a team of divers is hard at work on Brant Lake, situated along Route 8 in Warren County. While the cluster of a motor boat, a few kayaks and inner tubes makes it appear that the crew is there for fun in the 90-plus heat, they are on a mission: To do some underwater weeding.
What acid rain was for the 1980s, Eurasian milfoil was for the past decade. In the latter half of the 2000s, as more Adirondack lakes became overrun with aquatic invasives, nonprofits started coming up with ways to combat the problem.
Which is what led two young Paul Smith's students to form their own business specializing in Eurasian milfoil removal. Unlike the native Northern milfoil, the Eurasian variety is much more aggressive, spreading quickly and forming dense mats that choke out native plants, taking nutrients and creating anaerobic conditions that can kill native fish. To make matters worse, once milfoil reproduces itself, the plant breaks down quickly, creating murky, cloudy water.
"It makes its own swamp," said Andrew Lewis, co-owner of Aquatic Invasive Management, which he created with Tommy Thomson. The two natural-resource management majors cut their chops during summers working on the Upper Saranac Lake milfoil control project. Learning removal techniques developed by Dan Kelting of the Adirondack Watershed Institute, the duo went pro in 2007.
As concern about milfoil is spreading as fast as the weed itself, work is picking up for AIM. This summer is shaping up to be their busiest yet: with contracts coming in for more than 10 lake projects and the company's ability to have two crews working simultaneously.
The work that AIM specializes in is handpicking milfoil. Through constant tweaking of the technique, Lewis and Thomson have got it down to a science: Teams of divers go underwater together and form a line, picking all the milfoil in that line. They stuff the plants, root ball and all, into mesh bags that float to the surface. One or two teammates stay on the surface in kayaks, collecting the bags and plant fragments, and monitoring the compressor that supplies the divers with air, thus eliminating the need to use oxygen tanks. The surface guy communicates with the lead diver via a new underwater communication system.
AIM has been working in Brant Lake since 2008, and the Brant Lake Association, the nonprofit that brought them on, had done plenty of prep work through its volunteers. A milfoil committee set up an "adopt a bed" program, started a milfoil hotline and maintains a website, www.brantlakemilfoil.org.
According to Luc Aalmans, chair of the Brant Lake Milfoil Committee, although the volunteer effort is strong, the committee decided to hire AIM to take care of the heavier growth.
"It's amazing. They cover large areas in ways we'd never be able to do. They can cover so much area in a short period of time," Aalmans said.
Lewis acknowledges that handpicking may seem like a tedious and fruitless endeavor, but he says it's the most effective long-term management strategy. Once a clean sweep has been made, the rest is maintaining and controlling the return plants, he said. A bay that his crew spent a week and half clearing last year only took them a day and a half this time around.
"We've learned what we had to do to make this more efficient and keep the costs down," he said.
As business grows, Lewis hopes to expand operations into more lakes, hiring more summer divers and possibly a year-round support staff. And if he could find a way to sell all the stuff collected from lakes, he'd be all set.
"It's super rich in phosphorous and nitrogen. It makes a great compost," he said.
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