It’s a regular sight on Okanagan Lake: a milfoil harvester dredging up the invasive plant.
Technically a freshwater herb from Eurasia and Africa, the plant was first spotted in Okanagan Lake in 1970 and has since spread throughout the valley, the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says milfoil grows and spreads rapidly, displacing native plants and negatively impacting fish and wildlife populations.
It also interferes with water activities like swimming, sailing and water-skiing.
“This plant also has been known to impede flood control, water conservation and drainage and irrigation works,” DFO says on its website. “Milfoil populations can be very dense, making it very costly to control.”
Locally, the Okanagan Basin Waterboard has been fighting the plant since the 1970s.
And this week, the OBWB unveiled a new weapon in its ongoing battle against milfoil: A bigger, amphibious harvester, which was launched at Paddlewheel Park in Vernon.
The harvester acts like a lawnmower in that it cuts off the top five feet of a milfoil plant and can carry 2.5 tonnes’ worth of cuttings.
The new harvester, designed and built in Germany, will replace a current harvester that’s been in service since 1978.
“Because of changing lake level conditions and development around the foreshore in the Okanagan, we had less ability to use those machines in the same way we did in the past,” said James Littley of OBWB.
“So this machine is even capable of launching itself when lake levels are low.”
Littley also noted that milfoil can grow so thick that it can rob all the oxygen in an area, which can result in fish death via suffocation if they swim into that area.
“It has a lot of negative ecosystem effects and negative recreational effects,” said Littley.
The new harvester is also more efficient, has reduced emissions and can be launched without a trailer.
It’s also being called ‘ugly’ by the waterboard, which is reaching out to the public for a new, catchier name.
The ncontest is open to Okanagan residents only.
Email your ideas to OkWaterWise@OBWB.ca with the subject line: Milfoil machine naming contest.
Deadline for entries is July 15.