Aquatechnex completes Pro Certification to use Procellacor herbicide technology

Procellacor herbicide was registered by the US EPA this year as one of the new “reduced risk” technologies to target and control invasive aquatic weeds.  This product can be used in potable water reservoirs without restriction, and water from treatment area can be used to irrigate turf immediately.  It has the fastest uptake into the plant of any aquatic herbicide and as such as a very low contact exposure time requirement.

Procellacor is a systemic selective herbicide.  It is extremely active against Eurasian Milfoil and some of the newer hybrid milfoils now discovered in Pacific Northwest Lakes.

As part of EPA’s registration as a reduced risk technology, applicators are required to be trained and certified in the use of Procellacor prior to purchase and use.  Aquatechnex has completed this training and received certification.  We are currently the only ProCertified applicator west of the Rocky Mountains.

For more information see http://bit.ly/2Qiy7ml

Phoslock Paper Published in Journal

The Water, Air and Soil Pollution Journal has accepted and published our paper “Operational Evaluation of Phoslock Phosphorus Locking Technology in Laguna Niguel Lake, California”. A link to the abstract is here and we can send anyone who is interested a copy, just email tmcnabb@aquatechnex.com and request copy.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11270-014-2018-6

Aquatechnex announces new web site

Aquatechnex is pleased to announce that we have updated our web site. There are a number of features that we feel will be advantageous to clients and interested parties. This web site was developed in WordPress so this news blog will be consolidated on our front page and people will no longer have to migrate to two different sites to view our company information or our news publications. There is a search box on the top of the page that allows users to look for older articles from the blog. There are links to access our Facebook and Twitter feeds, feel free to “like” and follow us. We have the ability to present case studies and will update this from time to time to highlight new technology. The contact information includes our new customer service 800 number and a form that can be filled out and goes directly to our Client Relationship Management software, we received this information at once where ever we are. Give it a look and thanks to the over 15,000 that have viewed this blog since introduction.

www.aquatechnex.com

 

Western Aquatic Plant Management Society Upcoming in March

Join us at the CDA Resort for the WAPMS Meeting this March 25-27

The Western Aquatic Plant Management Society (www.wapms.org) will be holding their annual meeting this coming March 25-27 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The two day program has been announced and there are a variety of interesting papers being presented. There will be a mini symposium focused on Flowering Rush, one of the emerging invasive aquatic weed problems in the Pacific Northwest. There will also be papers on new management technologies for a number of other invasive species.

Aquatechnex biologists will be presenting three papers at this event. Terry McNabb as the President Elect of the North American Lake Management Society will be presenting an update on that organization and it’s programs. He will also be giving a paper on Six Years of Successful Eurasian Milfoil Management in North Idaho waters. Kyle Langan will be giving a paper on The Tale of Two Twins’s focusing on the first Phoslock application permitted in Washington State to target phosphorus pollution.

The schedule and registration information are available at http://www.wapms.org

Aquatechnex moves mapping technologies online

Aquatechnex biologist mapping invasive aquatic plant bed in North Idaho Lake

Aquatechnex has long been in the forefront of using mapping technologies to assess and understand water resource issues.  Our field teams utilize DGPS equipment and ArcGIS software to quantify invasive species infestations and map other features critical to invasive aquatic species management. We have also pioneered the use of maps to show clients and/or lake residents where we are working in relationship to their properties.  This is often a confusing point on large lake projects.

People are visual learners, looking at a photograph or map often leads to instant understanding of the subject matter.  Getting maps into people’s hands however has been an issue.  To date, many of these had to be printed and distributed.  Paper maps lack the ability to manipulate the image and subject matter so it can be better understood.  A lake resident for example might want to know if they are within a notification zone for an upcoming noxious aquatic plant management activity.  At a lakewide scale it may be hard to identify their home on a paper map.

Moving these maps online will help streamline our delivery of information to clients and other users.  It will also allow them to distribute the information within their organization or to their constituency.  One example is available at this link.  This shows potential treatment areas on a lake in Eastern Washington that will be targeted this summer for Eurasian Milfoil management as part of their integrated plan.  The treatment polygons are shown in yellow, and the required Washington Department of Ecology notification zone is shown in light blue.  Residents can access this site, compare activities to where they live or use the lake and understand how this treatment may or may not impact them.  As we build more of these, we expect to see a number of others uses with respect to communications as well.

http://aquatechnex.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingTextLegend/index.html?appid=a27b8976103a4737b7cae9e6093ecf01

AquaMaster Presents Outstanding Sales and Service Award

2012 Sales and Service Award

AquaMaster Fountains and Aerators presented Aquatechnex management with the 2012 Outstanding Sales and Service Achievement Award for 2012 at the Golf Industry Show in San Diego last week. Aquatechnex began blending their equipment into our lake management program this past year. While we have long felt that aeration plays an important part in protecting water quality in many situations, we found the AquaMaster equipment superior in many ways. They are designed to last. We enjoyed the opportunity to work with them this past year and thank them for this recognition.

First Phoslock Application to Public Waters in Florida Completed

SePRO Team applying Phoslock to Pine Lake. This is the first Public Water Application in Florida

Pine Lake has been plagued by eutrophication caused by excessive phosphorus loading as are many of the lakes throughout Florida and the United States.

Palm Beach County obtained approvals allowing SePRO Corporation to conduct the first application of the phosphorus pollution reduction technology Phoslock to a public waterbody in Florida this week. The County will be monitoring the response in water quality to this application over the coming months.

This project adds to the growing body of experience with Phoslock within the United States. Phoslock has been used extensively internationally for more than a decade. The first major Phoslock applications in the United States were made in California over the past three years. Permitting is now in place to expand Phoslock applications in many of the Western United States. The Pine Lake application and other projects planned throughout the United States this season will continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of this technology to restore water quality in phosphorus polluted ponds and lakes.

SePRO team capturing free reactive phosphorus with Phoslock at Pine Lake Florida

Aquatechnex at Golf Industry Show San Diego Next Week

Aquatechnex biologists Terry McNabb and Ian Cormican will be working with our lake aeration partner AquaMaster at the Golf Industry Show at the San Diego Convention Center this coming week February 6 and 7. Lake aeration plays a key role in the management of pond water quality and AquaMaster provides what we feel are the best performing and longest lasting equipment for this role. Those of you going please look us up at the AquaMaster Booth, No. 3616 or see this map link.

http://www.mapyourshow.com/shows/index.cfm?booth=3616&show_id=golf13&exhid=21269&userid&lang=EN&locale=EN

Sonar Herbicide delivers 11 years of Eurasian Milfoil Control

Lake McMurray in Western Washington is a 160 acre water body that was heavily impacted by Eurasian Milfoil throughout the 1990’s. In the late 1990’s the residents recognized the problem and proactively went through the process of developing an Integrated Aquatic Vegetation Management Plan with the asistance of Aquatechnex biologists. This planning process resulted in the implementation of a treatment program to maintain Sonar Aquatic Herbicide at very low doses in the lake for a six week period. This was accomplished by Aquatechnex staff calculating lake volume, dosing the lake at 10 parts per billion, monitoring at 2 week intervals and useing the results of that monitoring to bump the levels back toward 10 ppb if necessary. This treatment was accomplished in 2000.

In each year since, Aquatechnex has been selected to perform post treatment assessment and monitoring. Each year our team performs a boat and diver survey of the littoral area of the lake. There has been a robust recovery of native aquatic plant growth in the space formerly occupied by Eurasian Milfoil. We completed the 2012 survey this past summer and Lake McMurray remains free of this noxious aquatic weed. In addition to the Sonar treatment protocol resulting in eradication from this lake system, there have been no cases of reintroduction. The cost of this treatment initially was approximately $70,000.00 and with each additional year of being milfoil free, the cost benefit of the treatment go up.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.