Pepperell Conservation Commission Approves Five-Year Nashua River Herbicide Treatment Program

PEPPERELL — June 5, 2018 — Pepperell Conservation Commission unanimously approved a five-year order of conditions Tuesday to treat invasive water chestnut across more than 100 acres of the Nashua River using foliar herbicide application. The commission approved the Notice of Intent filed jointly by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Lakes and Ponds Program and Solitude Lake Management, which will apply Imazamox under the trade name Clearcast — recently registered in Massachusetts — at an estimated annual cost of $60,000 to $80,000, funded partly through DCR grants and a 2014 hydroelectric dam settlement that committed $350,000 to invasive species management on the river. Matt Salem, permit coordinator and GIS specialist with Solitude Lake Management, told the commission that mechanical harvesting, which cost the state more than $300,000 in 2008 and 2009, is no longer viable after the sole off-load site was lost to residential development. Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program approved the five-year term — longer than the standard three-year order of conditions — and prohibited copper algaecides due to the presence of freshwater mussels downstream of the dam. The Groton Conservation Commission approved the same filing approximately two weeks earlier.