Monday, December 24, 2007

Hyacinth High-Five

Back in July of this year, the ISW featured a post about a Florida neighborhood's canal system being overrun by water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes). The Naples Daily News has a good update on the story - sounds like the deciding factor over treating the aquatic invaders was that indeed, the county did own the canals, not local residents. Since then, the county has treated the canals twice using herbicide. Unfortunately there is no long-term management plan in place (the deciding factor for that being: $$$), so the plants will likely make a return in the future. At least the residents of East Naples sound a lot happier...for now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wasn't there a very successful biological control of water hayacinth on Lake Victoria in Africa?

Jennifer Forman Orth said...

Well, the Lake Victoria water hyacinth invasion is complicated (since they are dealing with other water quality issues that likely make life better for the water hyacinth) but AFAIK they have actually seen an overall *increase* in populations, not a decrease. See this ISW post for more information.