March 2025 - Message from Bob Capers
Hand-pulling the invasive bladderwort will continue on Tilton Pond this year, and more attention will be given to preventing the plant from spreading downstream to David Pond and beyond.
Representatives of the Basin, David and Tilton Pond Association and 30 Mile River Watershed Association met recently with officials of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to discuss the bladderwort and what work is planned for this year. John McPhedran, coordinator of the DEP invasive aquatic species program, said that organizing teams of volunteers to remove the plant is the best way to keep it from becoming abundant in front of people’s houses and along their beaches.
Unfortunately, he said, there is no way to get entirely rid of the invasive swollen bladderwort once it gets established, as it has in Tilton. “I wish we had better news for residents on the pond,” McPhedran said. “We have no problem with pulling swollen bladderwort out, but I know that’s not much consolation.”
He said the hand-pulling in Tilton has been authorized under a permit issued last year to 30 Mile, and the DEP will continue to monitor the species there and in several other Maine lakes where it occurs.
It will be important for Tilton volunteers to weigh how much of the bladderwort they remove from Tilton and to keep track of how many hours volunteers work on the removal effort, as was done last year, he said. Those numbers then can be compared with the amount pulled in 2024 to get a sense of whether the species, Utricularia inflata, is becoming more abundant.
Tilton resident Lori Beaulieu discussed an episode last summer when she was on Tilton in a small boat, and a raft of bladderworts became tangled around her electric motor, stalling it in the middle of the pond. She was able to clear it, but it got stalled by the bladderworts again within seconds.
McPhedran said that bladderworts are the plants about which he gets the most complaints each summer. The bladderworts often are seen below the surface of the water but sometimes the plants will float to the surface and can be pushed around lakes by the wind and waves. In most cases, the plants turn out to be native bladderworts, though they can become a nuisance, he said.
The focus of bladderwort work in 2025 will be on making sure the invasive plant doesn’t find its way downstream to David Pond. 30 Mile is organizing surveys for early in the growing season to make sure that, if the plant does reach David Pond, it will be seen right away, when eradication would still be possible. Surveys will continue through the summer, focusing on the area on the southwest side of David Pond where the stream from Tilton enters.
In addition to organizing those surveys, Silas Mohlar, aquatic invasive species coordinator with 30 Mile, will set up a net across the outflow stream from Tilton, as he and McPhedran did in 2024, hoping to catch any fragments of the bladderwort before they can reach David Pond.
In response to a question from Steve Smith-Erb, president of BDTPA, Mohlar said he believes the net is effective in catching fragments of the bladderwort. Mohlar said he had walked along the stream between Tilton and David and had seen no bladderwort fragments there, below the net, and that he will do that again this year.
Bob Capers, who coordinates surveys for invasives on David, Tilton and Basin ponds, said he hopes to find more residents to help with both the surveys on David Pondand the bladderwort-removal work on Tilton. Complete surveys need to be done on both ponds this year, and it would be good to survey both ponds more than once, looking for new invasive species as well as the bladderwort, but that would require more volunteers.
Smith-Erb, Mohlar and Capers met again later to talk about organizing a workshop to introduce prospective surveyors to the most common invasive plants they will need to look for, as well as some of the common native plants. That would be arranged early in the summer and will be advertised on the BDTPA web site once it is arranged. 30 Mile and other lake associations also will host Lake Stewards of Maine when it conducts a training session on Minnehonk Lake.
People who want to join the surveying effort or just want more information may email Capers, rscapers@mindspring.com. People also can email Capers or Lori Beaulieu (lbeaulieu63@gmail.com) if they are interested in helping with the bladderwort-pulling in Tilton Pond. That work probably will begin in late May or early June, depending on when the plant flowers.