Planning for Rotenone Treatment of Gardom Lake

The lake will be treated with rotenone Oct 5 & 6 2009. The lake will be closed for all uses between October 5 and 9; Gardom Lake Park is closed from Oct 1 - 9 as this is the staging area for the crews doing the work.

Ministry of Environment is using the well at our site as a test well for monitoring rotenone in groundwater after the application. Samples were taken from the well on Sep 28 and will be drawn again Oct 7.

Anyone who draws water from the lake is being provided an alternate source. Water tanks have been set up on about 7 properties around the lake.

Although a number of other lakes in the Salmon Arm area have had the rotenone treatment over the last few years, Gardom Lake is the biggest project yet. A figure in one news report said that the operation is costing in the order of $550,000. Because Gardom Lake is a headwater lake connected to the Shuswap River system, fisheries biologists are concerned that the invasive fish could potentially damage the salmon fishery in the Fraser watershed.

Applying the rotenone in the fall will have less impact than in the spring or summer. As it is directed towards gill breathing species, fish and amphibians in their tadpole stage are killed. Aquatic insect life will also be damaged but I've been told that aquatic invertebrates will repopulate the lake quickly. Western painted turtles will theoretically not be affected by the poison. Other life in the lake are waterfowl (ducks and geese are around right now, although the loons have left), muskrat, and birds of prey (eagles and osprey).

Since the perch and bass were placed in the lake, we have seen a dramatic decline in numbers of frogs and other species. Many who live on the lake hope that the drastic action of using rotenone will help the lake get back to the state that we remember it a couple of decades ago. One of the arguments that I heard that helped persuade me to support the treatment of the lake is that invasive fish are a form of biological pollution as or more damaging than other forms of pollution.

I will continue to post my observations on the treatment process.