Water Chestnut Weed Pull

Water chestnut is an invasive plant from Europe and Asia that grows rapidly on the surface of ponds and lakes. The weed doesn’t allow sunlight to penetrate through the water, removes oxygen from the water, and has other detrimental effects on the ecosystem. The seeds fall off of the plant and sink to the bottom of the pond until they grow up next spring. Since it has no predators in the United States, it can grow rapidly in a matter of a few years.

Just two years ago, Silk Mill Pond had no water chestnut covering its surface, but now in 2020, roughly 80 percent of the pond is covered in it.

During the two hour event, volunteers piled the water chestnut into buckets and canoes to pull as much as possible from the pond and pile it on the banks for the town of Canton to dispose of. Thanks to the volunteer’s hard work, we were able to remove over 25 boatloads of chestnut and clear 1/5 of the pond!

There is still more work to be done to clear the pond of this invasive weed. If water chestnut isn’t removed from ponds, it can spread through rivers and brooks to other ponds and lakes.