Winter Is Coming, Time to Get Your Chimney Checked
Most modern chimney care companies won’t give you a song and a dance, as Dick Van Dyke did in the classic film version of “Mary Poppins.”
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Will Towbridge provided an ongoing blacksmithing demonstration during the Fall Festival Saturday, Oct. 11.
Patrick L. Sullivan
But the main action was Saturday. Salisbury village was packed with festivalgoers. Several people opined that it was the largest Fall Festival crowd they’d seen.
The NBT scarecrow was outside the Salisbury branch of the bank Oct. 11.Patrick L. Sullivan
The SCS eighth grade class had a fundraiser going. The idea was for contestants to purchase chips and place them on numbers from 1 to 24.
Then a wheel was spun, a number chosen, and the winner got a cake.
Not a piece of cake. An entire cake.
A group of Indian Mountain School students were determined to get a cake. They purchased 17 chips and spread them around.
Alas, their number did not come up.
At the Salisbury Handmade booths on the White Hart lawn, a small girl was eyeing a toy bat as created by Liz Bucceri.
The little girl asked her grandmother about buying the bat.
The grandmother demurred.
Undeterred, the little girl disappeared, only to reappear holding a cell phone. She took a photo of the toy bat and dashed off again.
After a slightly longer wait, she returned with her grandfather in tow. Grandpa bowed to the inevitable, funds were exchanged, and the little girl pranced off happily, holding her bat aloft.
Bucceri said she started making the toy animals as a hobby and to give to friends with small children.
She only does one show per year, at the Fall Festival, because she is a teacher at a private school in Windsor and does not have vast amounts of free time.
On Library Street the traditional hayride was operating, and there was a new twist in the form of a ride in an antique car.
One of these was a 1930 Ford Model A station wagon, restored by Dave Heck and his son Dan some 15 years ago.
“We found it in pieces at Cape Cod,” Heck said. The restoration took about a year and a half.
Dave Heck gave a group a ride in his 1930 Ford Model A at the Fall Festival. Patrick L. Sullivan
The Salisbury Band Senior Hotshots struck up the familiar circus-y sounds of “Entry of the Gladiators” for the opening of their concert.
Behind the portable bandstand a sea of small children dashed about getting their faces painted or decorating pumpkins.
Looking on were Emma Foster of the Northwest Connecticut Prevention Network and Jessica Hawthorne of the Housatonic Youth Services Bureau. They were there to provide information about their respective organizations’ efforts to help people with substance abuse problems.
Moving east along Main Street, Will Trowbridge was demonstrating aspects of blacksmithing next door to St. John’s Episcopal Church, and right in front of the porch steps of the White Hart Inn, a group of dance students from Blue Studio Dance in Lakeville put on a show, featuring Sydney Howe of North Canaan.
Sydney Howe, center, was the tallest of the Blue Studio Dance performers in front of the White Hart Inn on Saturday, Oct. 11.Patrick L. Sullivan
A man with a dog on a leash and clutching a to-go coffee came out of the White Hart’s front door as the dancing was going on.
He looked somewhat taken aback. So did the dog.
There was tension in the air. Would the man and the dog try to go down the steps and awkwardly maneuver around the dancers?
The man looked to his left. No escape there.
He looked to his right.
Aha! An exit!
Crisis averted.
Sunday, Oct. 12 was cold and windy. By noon even the diehards of the Salisbury Association were bringing their tables and stacks of flyers inside.
But there were still cars parked along Route 44 towards Salmon Kill Road and people milling about, admiring the scarecrows and grabbing something warm to drink.
Russ Conklin, vice president of lake management for the Twin Lakes Association gave an update on hydrilla during an Oct. 8 meeting of coalition members at O’Hara’s Landing Marina. Looking on, from far right: Bill Barton, TLA vice president, Kitty Kiefer, Salisbury selectwoman, Andrew Cahill of the Mudge Pond Association and Josh Burnside (standing), field technical resource for SePRO.
Debra A. Aleksinas
The meeting’s location — several yards from where the first strand of the pernicious plant was discovered at the marina in May of 2022 and where a large sign now warns boaters of the threat — was a fitting backdrop for the 90-minute coalition meeting focused on managing the aquatic invader.
It is believed that the invasive weed, known as the Connecticut River Hydrilla, was introduced by hitching a ride with an unsuspecting boater.
Coalition partners included scientists and officials from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, local lake associations, town and state officials and other stakeholders.
Three years ago East Twin became the first lake to discover the novel Connecticut River strain of hydrilla in its waters. Since then, it has been identified in 10 additional state lakes.
Coalition member Gregory Bugbee, associate scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s Office of Aquatic Invasive Species (CAES/OAIS), reported that an effort to inspect all 84 boat ramps in Connecticut this year yielded only one site where hydrilla was found.
The threat nonetheless has lake associations rattled. Several groups from around the Northwest Corner have turned to the TLA and its coalition for guidance, as hydrilla — once established — is notoriously difficult to eradicate.
Herbicide’s impact
The meeting centered on this past summer’s success as well as collateral damage to a native plant, water marigold, following the TLA’s whole-lake treatment with the herbicide fluoridone.
Domenic Meringolo, environmental engineer and project manager with SOLitude Lake Management, said this summer’s treatment with Sonar, SePRO’s flagship aquatic solution, was more successful than prior spot treatments using the systemic herbicide ProcellaCOR.
While the ProcellaCOR failed to kill hydrilla, it was “beautifully effective” on ridding the lake of Eurasian watermilfoil, said Knoecklein. “It became pretty clear that the whack-a-mole strategy wasn’t going to work” on hydrilla.
The SOLitude project manager noted that the two-to-five parts per billion (ppb) concentration of fluoridone used throughout this summer at East Twin was to selectively control hydrilla while minimally affecting native aquatic plants at low concentration.
While the Sonar destroyed the hydrilla, it had an unintended ecological impact on one of the lake’s native aquatic species, Bidens beckii, commonly known as water marigold. The Bidens is a state protected plant that had been growing profusely in East Twin.
“This year, we couldn’t find it,” reported NEAR’S Knoecklein.
Of the 54 species of aquatic plants documented in East Twin Lake, the Bidens beckii was the only one adversely affected by the treatment, he explained. “We have more of it in Middle Twin, and there’s a very good indication that nothing else was impacted here.”
Knoecklein said he has been in contact with DEEP’s Natural Diversity Database (NDDB) regarding the loss of Bidens beckii.
“It was not completely unexpected, but we’ll be watching very closely next year,” he said. “I am hoping for some recovery.”
A diver is expected to re-inspect the lake this week.
“The hydrilla game has really become both surface visualization and looking for hydrilla in deeper waters,” said Knoecklein. “You can’t combat hydrilla in a lake without using these strategies.”
The TLA limnologist noted that prior dives found both young hydrilla plants and larger established ones.
“My suspicion is that this has been in the lake for four years and turned into a fort during that time, with massive plants six feet tall and lots of shoots. We had to move water lilies to find hydrilla growing under those plants.”
A sign warning boaters of the hydrilla threat at O’Hara’s Landing Marina stands in the location where the invasive weed was discovered at East Twin Lake in May of 2022. Debra A. Aleksinas
Lessons learned, lessons shared
The forum touched on the soaring costs of lake management, a concern to the TLA as well as smaller lake groups with limited funds and resources.
TLA’s annual lake management expenditures have increased tenfold — from about $50,000 per year to as much as $500,000 for the foreseeable future — as the association continues its intensive monitoring, testing, and prevention efforts.
Despite those costs, officials emphasized that East Twin’s experience offers valuable lessons for other lakes confronting hydrilla for the first time or preparing for an invasion.
Representatives from the Lake Wononscopomuc Association and Mt. Riga Inc., in Salisbury, attended the fall coalition meeting, along with officials from Mudge Pond Association in Sharon and Doolittle and Benedict Pond in northeastern Norfolk.
Christina Astrove, lake board president representing Doolittle and Benedict, was a first-time attendee. She was hoping to learn about how the TLA has been dealing with hydrilla and what steps are being taken to control and eradicate the worrisome weed.
While her lake community is private and prohibits motorboats, she is “very concerned” about the looming threat.
“I attended a Connecticut Federation of Lakes meeting this spring and have taken several webinars” on the topic, noted Astrove. “It’s scary.”
Mudge Pond representative Andrew Cahill said his group is bracing for hydrilla’s arrival due to high boat traffic.
“We have everything but hydrilla at this point, but I’m sure we will have it at some point.”
TLA President Grant Bogle said he is pleased to share information from lessons learned. “The goal is not only to support Twin Lakes, but to spread the word. It takes a village, literally, to address this threat.”
TLA officials said they have been fielding calls from lake associations throughout the United States seeking advice and guidance, and they are happy to share.
CAES’ Bugbee praised the Twin Lakes group’s aggressive response to the hydrilla threat, swift creation of its coalition of advisors and for sharing their collective knowledge. “This organization is second to none. It’s almost like a poster child for how things should be done.”
Knoecklein said despite vigilant surveillance of boat ramps and closing lakes off to the public, the hydrilla threat persists.
“In my opinion all possible vectors are on the table,” including recreational fishing and birds flying overhead dropping plant fragments.
Grant Bogle, TLA association president, agreed that “surveillance is key.”
“While we have good news to report in terms of hydrilla, this isn’t over. Forevermore we are going to have to be hyper-vigilant, no matter what happens down the road. It came in once and it could come in again.”
