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Low Down on Lake Toho Draw Down
Part 5: According to Plans
By Paul Crawford

April 15, 2004

We're about half way done with the West Lake Toho Draw down. There have been few surprises either good or bad thus far. Roughly two-thirds of the exposed area has been scraped into wind rows and about one-third of the area has been hauled out. Mother Nature paid us a visit with enough rain to give our lawns some hope but only slowed the hauling job a few days for drying out. That translates into about 40% complete which is oddly enough right on schedule for half way through.

Good engineers, planners, and managers are sometimes referred to as professional cynics. As with other jokes, the humor is grounded in the truth of the stereotype. As summed up by a sign in the Engineering department, "The difference between an Optimist and a Pessimist is the Pessimist knows more." Such is the case of the lake managers who spent months planning for things they hoped they wouldn't find but somehow knew they would find it anyway. Due to the fears and foresight of the planners, things are progressing just fine.

Planners knew that any large project has its birthing pains, and the draw down was no exception. Contract and bidding issues delayed matters in some areas, and of course the weather had to be factored in. One thing that held up the hydrilla control program is something few could have foreseen, snails. Actually, it was the snail kites, which are a type of medium sized hawks that dine on the native apple snails widely found in the shallows of the Kissimmee basin lakes. Snail kites and their nests have been declining over the last few seasons, raising concerns among the bird watchers, environmentalists, researchers and the EPA. Apparently, the snail kite's natural nesting areas are in the same areas as being restored by the draw down, making that a good thing. But reason the kites are around the lakes in the first place is the ready-made food supply. As we discussed a couple of articles back, to drain West Lake, you have to drop the level of the rest of the Kissimmee Chain to receive the water, (something the Sierra Club was already upset about.) When drop the water, particularly around Lake Kissimmee, you leave the habitat of the Apple Snails high and dry, much to the distress of the snails. So while a compromise on Lake Kissimmee water levels was in the works, the hydrilla control program, which depended on the water levels, had to be put on hold. The control program started on West Lake on March 10th, and Lake Kissimmee started its catch up mode about 2 weeks later.

We've typed before about the unpredictability of the weather and what disruptions rain can cause. As the scraping and muck removal moves forward under sunny skies, other weather woes are being fought by the Weed Control Patrol. As it turns out, sun is one of the many things that breaks down the Sonar you use to control hydrilla. And while you may not have to worry about rain diluting the treatment or washing it down stream, you still have to go out on the water to administer the stuff. Going out in the middle of these shallow lakes in March sometimes means looking at 3-foot waves caused by the March winds. So, you're now on the clock trying to monitor and stabilize your treatment concentrations and under the gun to find a calm enough day to do it.

If sun, rain, and wind weren't enough to fight, lake managers have recently realized they are facing a new and troubling foe in their fight against the weed invasion, microbes in the lake bottoms. In one of the more impressive examples of Nature adapting to conditions, it appears we are now growing microbes in some lakes that have developed a taste for Sonar. Fluridone was always engineered to break down in the environment. The afore mentioned sun breaks it down, it quickly dilutes in a flowing system, and it falls into the sediment and adheres to the dying hydrilla and clay particles that carries the silt downstream. When it reaches the bottom of the lake, carbon-loving microbes continue to break it down and eliminate the compound from the environment. This natural process has been one of the many reasons lake managers love using Sonar, since it continued to work in low concentrations while waiting for the microbes to come by. This residual effect, which provided 3 to 5 ppb treatments to emerging hydrilla from the tubers trapped in the silt, extended the treatment life of Sonar from 12 to 18 months after application meaning you only had to treat a lake every couple of years. This strategy had been loosing some effectiveness over the last few years as natural selection of the hydrilla gave rise to strains that could withstand the low levels of Sonar in the silt. But 2 or 3 years ago researchers started noticing an increasingly rapid break down of the treatments they couldn't explain. It turns out the hydrilla wasn't the only thing that was adapting. The microbes that had been dining on the Sonar found ways of refining the break down process and instead of it takes months to break down the treatment, now the Sonar was gone in as little as 7 days. The microbes were cleaning out the herbicide quicker than a teenager can clean out a refrigerator and the expense of keeping food on hand was escalating just as quick. Now fortunately, these hungry little fellows haven't made their way to the Kissimmee chain yet, but it probably only a matter of time. Needless to say, scientists from all over the country are descending on Florida to examine this new threat and we'll likely hear much more about it in the coming months. Meanwhile, planners have a new reason to reach for the antacid.

Over the next month or so, we will open up a new front in the War on Weeds with the spraying of about 2,000 acres of newly exposed lake bottom. One of those things you hope doesn't happen is when you remove one pesky weed, another equally pesky weed pops up to take its place. And just like the good planners thought, new undesirable weeds are emerging in some of the newly scraped areas. The spraying program in May will eliminate the new weeds and give the native growth another chance at taking back its habitat. But good plans have backups to backups, and another 2,500 acres will be treated in October. If the May treatment is successful, then new, lower priority areas will be treated in the fall, otherwise, a second round can be applied to most contested areas of the lake making the most of this years work.

While lake managers are adjusting their plans, so the fishermen should be making adjustments themselves. The fishing on West Lake has been somewhat disappointing compared to expectations. The population is excellent and the forage base is robust which means all of the bass you catch look like little footballs stuffed with shad. But the fishing has only been very good to excellent depending on which day you go which falls well short of the once-in-a-lifetime category. Unlike most every other lake in the area, schooling is still rare and mostly confined to small bucks. Speculation on the reason for the delay has centered on the mass invasion of birds that fill the lake feasting in the shallow water. Perhaps the giant schools of shad just never form up or maybe the cover is still thick enough to prevent open water buffets. If we're going to start having 200 fish days out there, it will likely be in May. All of the elements are present and the lake just seems to be holding its breath waiting to break loose. I will dutifully monitor the situation on your behalf so I can let you know if you miss it.

For those that volunteer to travel to Central Florida and assist with my monitoring burden, Richardson's Fish Camp is still the best place on West Lake proper to launch. The good alternative site if you don't mind locking through is the Lake Cypress ramp. The county still hasn't gotten around to working on the South Port ramps.

The hydrilla control program on West Lake and Cypress Lake couldn't be going better and you can start noticing the white or pink tips of the injured plants. Hatchineha is coming along very nicely and Kissimmee is now kicking into high gear. You can actually start using crank baits if that's your thing, (I might even buy one this year.) But don't wait too long because by this fall the hydrilla is expected to be making a come back and open water may become rare once again. With the loss of the hydrilla filter, the water is taking on a little color throughout the chain. The normal natural colors still work but options are expanding into stronger colors and active late spring baits. The top water bite is improving daily with jerk baits and spinner baits a good alternative.

It's still too early to declare victory and there continues to be a long list of worries for the planners to contend with, but you have to be encouraged. A lot of the major fears have not materialized and drastic plans can be stored for another future project. My hat is off to the huge community that is making this draw down a success. The more I learn about the planning and coordination it takes to do this, the more impressed I become with the care and expertise demonstrated by these managers. It makes you proud to see so many hard working people making things go right for our benefit. In case nobody else says it, "Good Job, Guys."

I wonder if anyone has seen any Zebra Mussels headed this way?

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