September 16, 2006

Although the weather report forcasted sunny and 80 degrees...the Milfoil Harvest day dawned foggy and cloudy and a little on the cool side...and it stayed that way. Once again, thank you to Dave and Faye Lockwood and Bill and Joanna deLorraine, who hosted the dive team from Buffalo. A very special thank you to the divers and of course, to soon-to-be-married Carole and Tony.
Follow this link to their website.

The week previously, Lea Dickson and Dave Lockwood met and toured the lake with DEC agent Tom Beschle to identify the locations of the worst of the milfoil infestations. This proved to be along the west shore of Sylvia, from Dodd's to Gotham's. Lea divided the divers into two teams, one to start from Dodds and the other from Gothams.

The divers pull the milfoil, but scooping it off the surface of the water is the most critical aspect of the process. As the weeds float to the surface, the scoopers keep the pulled weeds from floating away and reseeding somewhere else. The weeds are gathered and taken to the Pumphouse Bay shore where Dave Lockwood and his tractor picked them up and disposed of them, far from Sylvia Lake. Dave said that in spite only one day of weeding this year, he thought more weeds were pulled than in previous years...judging from the tractor loads.

Thank you to the following lake volunteers, Linda Scott, Gary Scott, grandson Maddison, Murray Scott, Bill deLorainne, Ralph Undercoffler and son, David, Shari Barnhart, Lea Dickson, Dave Lockwood, Gale Ferguson, Sandy Kraker (who was a diver!), and to Cora VonColin and Faye Lockwood for making sandwiches and organizing sustenance for the divers. Once again, a special thanks to Dave and Faye Lockwood and to Bill and Joanna deLorainne who continue to host and feed the divers for this special weekend.

See the photo album of this year's event...
Photographs by Shari Barnhart and Gary Scott