On March 19 Chestermere city council postponed the purchase of new weed harvesters until after council has completed the review of the city’s budget.
The decision to postpone the purchase of new harvesters means there won’t be any change to how the city handles lake weeds this year.
The proposal to purchase a new harvester came from a request from council for city staff to come up with options to improve lake weed harvesting and control.
“At this point, it’s important to mention this is still in an option stage,” said Kathy Russell, Parks and Recreation Manager with the city.
She said council will still need to be considering the level of service and what the best way to be removing weeds are and to what degree.
She also said harvesting has been done this way for several years so it’s kind of a stop, evaluate, and move on sort of thing.
“It’s always good to stop and evaluate what we’re doing,” said Russell.
They want to purchase the new harvesters because it would allow for increased removal of the weeds in the lake.
“It would mean adding another machine to add to the harvesting of specific types of harvesting for weeds,” she said.
However, the city needs to be very careful with how they harvest the weeds and how they increase that harvesting.
Deputy Mayor Mel Foat said that they face a complication in harvesting lake weeds because Chestermere Lake has a problem with the invasive flowering rush.
Russell shares this sentiment and said that it complicates weed harvesting because they want to be cutting normal weeds instead of flowering rush.
“Our harvester operators need to know where the flowering rush exists, and they need to make sure to avoid those areas,” said Russell.
Foat said if they drag the lake that could possibly contaminate the rest of the lake with flowering rush.
They aren’t sure whether or not cutting the flowering rush will cause greater problems or not with it spreading.
According to Foat what goes into the decision of purchasing new harvesters is looking at harvesters themselves and making sure it can do the job.
He said that weeds are a major concern because of the boating on the lake and how close it is to homeowners.
Russell said the biggest problem with lake weeds is that they end convenience and get in the way of recreational activities in the lake, such as boating.
The city’s plan for weed removal begins with looking at the cost and is followed by conversations with the lakeshore residents and looking into new ideas.
At the moment Chestermere has three harvesters that cut for 10 weeks in the summer.
If council decides to purchase more weed harvesters that would increase the number of weeds taken out of the lake from last year’s 300 tons.
