Water Chestnut removal Volunteer Day

For the past couple of years the Norton Conservation Department  has been having an annual event at Borrowsville Pond to remove the Water Chestnut (Trapa natans) plants. You can find more information on the Water Chestnut here: Fact Sheet The Water Chestnut is an exotic invasive plant from Eurasia. It is and annual herb transported mostly by geese when the 4- horned seed gets trapped in its feathers. One seed can produce 300 more seeds within 1 year and the seeds are viable for 5 years. This plant can out compete our native plants ans is a danger to Norton's biodiversity.


Here are some pictures along with our "Father's Day" adventure picking Water Chestnuts...

Barrowsville Pond, Norton, MA

It really was a beautiful day to volunteer to be on a canoe!

Canoes and kayaks were used to hall in the Water Chestnuts plants.  They must be harvested during the spring, before they drop their (pointy) seeds to the mud bed below.  The seeds can sit in the mud for 5 years! Making this and annual event!

The volenteers arrived. 

and got right to work....

We decided that it would be a fun Father's Day activity for Mason to go out with Warren this year!  We printed out the information for this volunteer job the night before for Mason to read, so he would understand the idea, that we were volunteering to help remove these invasive plants.  He was up for the job and very happy to help!

James and I sat at the shore (with the buckets) and waited....

It really was very nice and peaceful..While we waited we picked up ALL the TRASH, left by people that must not realize that there is a trash barrel on site!...after our clean up, we played in the water, searched for seeds and explored the paths in the woods.

Out on the pond working!

Here they come....Jennifer C from the conservation dept. with her kayak filled with Water Chestnut plants.

A boat load!

Once on shore we unloaded the spiky plants into buckets and up to the dump truck.

More coming in....

even more...everyone work very hard...There were several trips made during the 3 hours.

Little barge of plants towed behind the kayak.

The big hall of plants in the truck!

In the end it was a fun and satisfying day... These little volunteers are ready to do it again next year!

For more information on this event please contact Jennifer Carlino.