The quest to be Alberta’s recreational oasis can present some unique challenges for the city’s parks department.
While all cities need to control the weeds in their parks and green spaces, Chestermere takes it one step further, working to control the weeds in the lake.
“Really there’s two reasons, one is to make sure that the lake is safe for motorized vehicles to operate in and the other is to make it functional from a recreation perspective,” said City of Chestermere, Parks and Recreation Manager Kathy Russell.
If the city left the weeds to grow through the season, they would grow to the surface, impeding water craft of all kinds.
“They would get in the way of paddling,” said Russel.
The weeds could also tangle propellers and trip up water skiers.
“It’s not just about propellers with motor boats, it’s also…making sure that sailing and water skiing and swimming and all those summer activities that everyone enjoys here can carry on,” she said.
To manage the weeds, the city employs a fleet of three weed harvesters, a barge and a truck to transport the collected weeds to be composted.
The parks staff work as the harvester operators while a fourth person works the barge and truck.
Operations begin around the end of June or beginning of July and run Monday through Friday until about the Labour Day long weekend.
The start and finish times vary year to year based on the weather conditions.
“We tried starting earlier but the weeds hadn’t grown substantially,” said Russell.
In their experience, the End of June to September time frame is the most efficient for controlling the lake weeds.
The harvesters are distinctive and stand out while operating on the lake.
The paddle wheel driven craft are painted a bright orange colour and travel at 5km/h, about a walking pace.
The harvesters consist of front mounted cutting blades, a conveyer belt that collects and moves the weeds onto the craft onto a second conveyor belt in the collection bay that moves the weeds to the back of the craft and when the harvester is at capacity it is used to unload the collected weeds onto either the barge or the shore.
The operator controls the craft from a raised platform in the middle.
“The harvesters…they cut the weeds and they also pick up floating weeds,” said Russell.
“We always have floating weeds in the lake,” she said.
Parks staff try to avoid peak usage times on the lake by working 9 hour shifts Monday to Friday thus avoiding the busy weekends and evenings during the boating season.
The amount of lake that each harvester can cover on a given ship depends on several factors.
“It would really vary based on the density of the weeds and where they are,” said Russell.
Windy days can also be a struggle as the harvesters are tall enough to be blown of course in strong winds.
Each operator covers a specified route, which allows them to learn the growth habits of the weeds in their area.
This also lets operators pick up where they left off the previous day to ensure that nothing gets missed.
Traditionally there are less weeds on the North side of the lake.
This allows the city to move the harvester that operates on the north side to the south side after four to five weeks.
“It would be somewhat dependent on the harvester’s experience as far as the amount of weeds that are being removed,” said Russell.
“Once the volume of weeds lessons then they would move to the south side,” she said.
Due to their size, speed and colour the harvesters are easy to see while they’re working.
With that in mind, Russell said that other lake users are asked to stay clear of the harvesters to ensure everyone’s safety.
“They are moving pretty slowly so we’ve never had any concerns about boats getting in the way of the harvesters,” she said.
Each year, Parks and Recreation through their harvesting operations remove about 225 tons of weeds out of the lake.
That number is on top of another close to 200 tons of lake weeds picked up by Chestermere Utilities Inc. from the lakeshore residents.
“The residents around the lake are…helping out by collecting weeds off their shoreline,” she said, “we really appreciate that.”
Both the harvested weeds and the ones collected curbside are taken and composted by the city and then used in the city’s flower boxes and gardens.
“It’s basically loam,” said Russell.
Chestermere residents can pick up the composted lake weeds for use in their gardens from the recycling yard.
