Amityville deploys new blanket offense to root out invasive weed

Village of Amityville officials are hoping the use of special blankets will finally put to sleep an invasive weed that is choking its waterways.

The village recently placed four benthic blankets, or mats, in Amityville Creek in Delano Preserve on top of beds of parrot feather, an invasive weed that forms in shallow, slow-moving water. The blankets are made of vinyl with pockets for rebar to weigh it down to the bottom of the creek, said Amityville trustee Owen Brooks, who is overseeing the project. The 10-by-40-foot blankets are left in place for about a month, preventing sunlight from reaching the weeds, eventually suffocating them.

“If you have a beautiful lawn and you lay a sheet of plywood on your lawn and you leave it there for three or four weeks, you know what the lawn’s going to look like under the plywood,” Brooks said.

Department of Public Works employees will continually move the blankets south to a new section every month, and then over to Avon Lake. The four mats cost $300 each, officials said, and will be used on 2,100 square yards, or nearly half an acre, in the preserve and 6,900 square yards, or nearly an acre and a half, in the lake.

“This is not a quick one-and-done, this will take time and will probably require ongoing maintenance in the years to come because this stuff is bound to pop up again,” Brooks said. The village tried to remove the weed by hand but made little progress, he said.

Amityville has received a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which approves of the blankets as a safe method of eradicating parrot feather. The village was told to wait until after fish spawning season to begin, Brooks said.

“If we can get rid of the parrot feather, it gives the natural growth a good chance of coming back and reestablishing itself,” he said. Improved water conditions in the lake could lead to the DEC restocking it with fish, as the agency did years ago, he added.

While parrot feather has been recorded in other bodies of water on Long Island, DEC Regional Ecosystem Health Manager Kevin Jennings wrote in an email that he is not aware of any other municipality getting a permit to treat the weed with benthic blankets. Jennings noted that areas not regulated by the Freshwater Wetlands Act do not require a permit.

“Control or eradication is difficult,” Jennings said of parrot feather, which was a popular aquarium plant that is now banned in the state. “Any broken pieces left behind during hand-pulling can drift away, take root and regrow.”

Herbicides are not very effective due to the weed’s waxy coating, he said, and it’s not clear how effective benthic blankets will be on parrot feather.

Residents near Avon Lake are cautiously optimistic about the project. Last year they complained that the village had not been responsive to their requests for improvements in and around the lake, but said the parrot feather initiative and other work being done leaves them hopeful.

“They do seem very committed to cleaning up the area,” said Susan Geiger, 69. “Of course I’d like it to be faster, but at least they’re giving it attention.”

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.