Helping To Save The Lake

Lake George is making a huge effort to keep invasive species out of the lake. Although there are many boats that stay in the lake at docks for the entire season, others come from other lakes and rivers, especially Lake Champlain, which is so near. Sometimes the fishing boats will go from Champlain to Lake George within a day or two and can easily transport all sorts of invasive species on their trailers, gear and bait wells. There are inspection stations for boats coming and going at most of the lakes now (and there was even one at Grass Point on the St. Lawrence), but all boats entering Lake George now have to go through an inspection process. The lake stewards try to make it as easy as possible, and when you come out of the lake and plan on returning, they will tag your boat to the trailer so they know that you don't need to be inspected the next time around, cutting off the wire tag when you return. If they find any milfoil, etc. on the trailer, it is removed, or if bait wells, engine compartments, or outdrives have water in them and you have been to a different body of water within the previous two weeks, they have a procedure they go through to decontaminate the boat. Moxie went through this process the other day, when although the engine compartment was so dry Dave had vacuumed it, we had neglected to put the outdrive down and water came out. Now this was the water left over from the St. Lawrence where invasives abound, especially zebra mussels. There could have very easily been larvae growing in the water remaining and coming out into the lake when we put the outdrive down restarted the engine. Off to the decontamination area we went.

They have a an 80 gallon hot water compressor that they hooked up to the boat and flushed our engine until the temperature came up to 140 degrees, which will kill anything in there. If we had bait wells, they would have done the same thing, or in the case of Jim and his SeaDoo, where he had water in the engine compartment from Saratoga Lake, they vacuumed out the water. The containment pad water will be vacuumed and recycled through large filters and reheated.

Some people are irate about having to go through all this, but it only took about 15 minutes. We were glad to help keep Lake George the clearest and cleanest lake in America...we love it!