Thanks for your interest in the Hickory Hills Lake Fanwort Survey efforts.

As you may be aware, the invasive weed Fanwort was discovered in our former boat cove located next to the Island Road beach and Office in 2011. Since then, our volunteer Survey teams have been identifying the plants’ locations in our lake for removal by our volunteer DASH teams. We also were fortunate enough to utilize the work of a 3rd-party DASH company for several years to help with these efforts.

In 2019 the amount of Fanwort found outnumbered any efforts traditional DASH methods could conquer alone. Our residents agreed in September that year to hire the environmental consulting company ESS Group, Inc. to help us determine the best way to manage the infestation.

In 2020 SOLitude Lake Management treated our lake with the herbicide Fluridone based on the recommendation of ESS. Their estimate of removing 95% of Fanwort from our lake after application, along with spot treatments in 2021 if we found more was agreed upon.

In 2021 and beyond it is up to all of us including our Survey Committee to find any Fanwort that this treatment left in our lake and continues to grow back so we can take advantage of our Dive Survey efforts and spot treatments to postpone the need for another expensive lake-wide Fluridone treatment as long as possible (which is currently predicted by ESS to occur in 3 – 5 years post 2019 if we do nothing).

The effects of the Fluridone treatment in 2020 provides us a better chance with a more educated opportunity to utilize what we’ve learned since 2011, coupled with the advice of the experts we’ve hired to do an even better job at maintaining our infestation now and in the future.

The faster we can find this plant, the faster we can remove it, better predict how to address with potential spot treatments and better forecast how long it will be before we’ll potentially need another lake-wide treatment and plan for it.

If you’re interested in joining a Survey Team to help with this effort, just shoot us an email so we can answer any questions you may have.

Send us an email and check out our new Facebook page to learn more and see our progress.

As always, happy surveying and kind regards from the Hickory Hills Fanwort Survey committee!