GEORGE NEWS - Concerned residents have reported prolific weed growth on the Garden Route dam. The alarm was sounded last year already, when canoeist Howard Ogilvy expressed his dismay with the rapid growth of the weed. He said the plants can be seen at all the inlets into the dam.
Paul Godwin, another outdoor lover, said this week, "I don't know what plant is it but surely something needs to be done by the municipality?"
According to Director of Community Services Walter Hendricks, the municipality's department of Parks and Recreation is aware of the vegetation growing on the dam. He said, "(The department) controls it biologically or with an approved aquatic herbicide three times a year. The current growth will be treated within the month".
Recurrence of Kariba weed
Municipal communications officer Athane Scholtz confirmed that it is Kariba weed (Salvinia molesta), the same weed that endangered the dam in 2016. At the time, Alida de Beer reported that Dean Chandler and local environmental activist Ken Gie had already sounded the alarm bells when Salvinia was first noticed along the edges of the dam three years before, in April 2013.
In April 2016 Dean chandler again warned, "The Salvinia weed on the dam is back with a vengeance and spreading rapidly."Since then, the weevil, a beetle of Brazilian origin that feeds on Salvinia, has been introduced by the Department of Environmental Affairs. It seemed to have contained the weed for a time, but now the weed has made its reappearance.
Salvinia floats on still or slow-moving water and can grow rapidly to cover the entire water surface with a thick mat of vegetation. It can choke waterways if left to grow unchecked.
In 2016 Reley Bell, biological control and water weeds officer at the Department of Environmental Affairs, said beetles had been released twice during the previous two years to control the growth, and more needed to be introduced, but that they were also using other control methods.
"The methods we have are manual clearing, herbicide and biocontrol, but the balance between using herbicide and biocontrol is crucial because the insects are sensitive to herbicide."
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