Vancouver Lake covers about 2,300 acres and for generations — for centuries, really — has provided recreation including swimming, rowing, boating and fishing.
Yet no government entity is eager to claim ownership. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has jurisdiction over wildlife around the lake; the Department of Natural Resources controls the lake bed; the Department of Ecology has authority over the water; Vancouver-Clark Parks & Recreation runs a park adjacent to the lake; and the nearby Port of Vancouver administers some of the lake’s resources.
As a result, Vancouver Lake is a bit of an orphan, making it difficult to muster an appropriate response when the area faces an ecological crisis. Now, it is necessary for the city of Vancouver, Clark County and the Port of Vancouver to combine resources and oversight in order to ensure that the lake continues to serve residents for generations to come.
For now, that duty has been embraced by the Friends of Vancouver Lake, a private coalition of citizens that formed last year to address a growing infestation of milfoil in the shallow body of water. According to the Department of Ecology: “Eurasian milfoil, an invasive nonnative plant, is one of the worst aquatic plant pests in North America. … Every effort should be made to prevent the spread of this plant.”
Department officials warn: “Milfoil also starts spring growth sooner than native aquatic plants and can shade out these beneficial plants. When milfoil invades new territory, typically the species diversity of aquatic plants declines. … Milfoil reproduces extremely rapidly and can infest an entire lake within two years of introduction to the system.”
Local residents have taken note. “If we don’t do something this year, the lake will be unusable by 2022,” said Larry Cassidy, former chairman of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, during a meeting last week with The Columbian’s Editorial Board.
That “something” amounts to using ProcellaCOR, a herbicide approved in 2018 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Friends of Vancouver Lake is seeking approval from the state of Washington to treat the lake and has raised about $70,000 out of a necessary $175,000 to pay for the process. Following that, less-expensive annual maintenance will be required.
That is where the city, county and port must come in. From 2004 through 2014, the Vancouver Lake Watershed Partnership oversaw management of the lake; then it fell apart, apparently from a lack of interest. A still-existing website for the partnership notes that the “next” meeting is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2015. It also explains: “Vancouver Lake is valued as a regional community treasure and environmental resource. It supports healthy, diverse native plant and animal communities and offers a wide variety of recreational uses.”
Since then, the county and the port have contributed $25,000 annually to the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership for education and outreach; the city of Vancouver has added $10,000 a year. The first step should be to determine whether that funding could be better used to revive the Vancouver Lake Partnership, followed by plans to bolster the health of the lake.
Members of Friends of Vancouver Lake are to be commended for aggressively addressing the milfoil infestation, but the future of the lake should not depend on community activists. As member Jim Luce said: “We need a group re-formed to deal with issues when they come.”
