FWC doesnt target Hydrilla...but

Lol... I guess there is proof in the pudding. Nice work son.

Can you find me what the USFWS spends at LOXNWR killing lygodium and malelueca? I don't think they have much hydrilla left on the refuge at this point, but I do see the spray boats in there from time to time.

       remember when the bombing range from 75 all the way north to lox was full of malaluca heads,  tons of deer, pigs ,small game .ponds loaded with fish during dry times. sad to look out there today at a sawgrass wasteland.    i know some folks believe fwc and others are doing a fine job but in reality they are public land hunters and fishermens worst enemy.     not the officers but the ones at the top making decisions.   seems like nothing is done with sportsmen in mind.    unless its more restrictions.

Kinda damning that the only specific plant listed is "Hydrilla".....

Thats called MYFWCC

We need a few decades of Bobby Brantley...

At just about every meeting ive ever attended FWC has implicitly expressed they only spray hydrilla when necessary for flood control(structures) or (navigation). Somehow or another thousands of acres of un necessary hydrilla is sprayed and killed. They used to be able to say that high water killed the hydrilla, now we all know that has been another lie for many years now.

Not only that Mak but I’ve personally watch the spray boats clean out their chemical tanks with lake water at the end of the day. The last time I watch one do it was on the outside of the reef. I watched him spraying down the edge (where there was nothing alive to spray)then rinsing out the tank with lake water when he was finished. It’s such bullshit.

If they keep spraying Lake O as in the past, there will no hard bottom for fish to spawn. After spraying, all the vegetation dies and creates a muck on the bottom that is impossible for fish to make beds. Last year, spawning was restricted to two main area, one one the north end, and the other the other around South Bay. The important resource to Florida is being destroyed by overzealous aquatic plant management. If something is not done, this body of water will become another casualty of poor management. The high water levels are doing enough damage, and the spraying is only making the problem worse. Wake up SFWMD before it is too late. It as if the purpose of water managers is to make Lake O a storage reservoir for Big Sugar, rather than maximizing the recreational value.

Lake O is the new Lake Apopka.

The damming is the main reason for muck. Not allowed to flood or dry down.

I always understood that the muck was created by dead vegetation - organics. Kinda like the topsoil you find in gutters.

Last Wednesday I was at my lease bordering Harney Pond Canal several miles north of Lakeport, and there was an airboat spraying the canal all day. There is zero submerged vegetation in the canal, and it is currently completely devoid of hyacinths and water lettuce. They sprayed all day anyways, and just hosed down the canal banks 10 or 15 feet up from the water edge.

It sure seems like they have a contract to spray a fixed amount of poison on a fixed schedule, so they spray poison in and around the water even if there is no water vegetation left to spray.

The whole spray program really needs to be stopped, and reevaluated. The water weed spraying is probably what is really killing the southern half of the state, including all the grass in Florida Bay and the Keys reef, yet you only ever hear about the sugar farmers. Farmers use as little chemical as possible because it is expensive and takes straight from their profits, while the spray program seems to be paid to waste chemicals even if unnecessary.