In Cascade we have experienced a very serious problem that not many people know exists. This problem is the never-ending battle that many county workers, ranchers, farmers, and local residencies fight with noxious weeds. Noxious weeds cost Idaho millions of dollars each year as an attempt to control them. Alas, noxious weeds spread quickly, giving them an advantage over the people trying to control them. Noxious weeds have shown drastic signs of spreading through the agricultural, recreational, and environmentally protected land in Cascade and all other areas in Idaho. The rapid spreading of noxious weeds throughout Cascade and Idaho pose a tremendous problem and that is where our project comes in. The Noxious Weed Project was started three years ago and as students go on to graduate the project is left alone until someone "adopts" it, which is exactly what we have done. The students before us have left behind a great deal of information and we spend most of the year reading their journals so that we could pick up from where they left off. In doing so, we have experienced our share of problems. We were both unfamiliar with the equipment that we were supposed to use so we had to read books and teach ourselves which happened without success.
	The Noxious Weed Project Our main goals with the Noxious Weed Project are to successfully locate and map out the noxious weeds in Cascade and around the lake. In doing so, we believe the points that we map out with aid the county workers in their efforts to control the weeds. In order to map out the weeds we first need to be identify them, then map them out using the Global Positioning System (GPS), and proceed to download the points onto a map which is provided by a program called Terrain Navigator. Before we could go out into the field and start mapping, my partner and I needed to learn about the equipment that we would be using and become skilled in the listed areas: 1. Interpreting maps being able to know where the weeds have been mapped. 1. Weed identification being able to identify different weeds during the different stages of growth. 1. Terrain Navigator-being able to understand how to download our points onto a map and printing off maps with our mapped points. 1. GPS12-being able to know how to run GPS12 and knowing how to take points.
Technology In adopting the noxious weed project, we not only adopted the previous groups work and ideas, we also adopted a great deal of equipment and computer programs to help us out. With this project we use several different kinds of technology equipment, those being the Garmin GPS 12 and the USGS Topographic series (Maptech), camera, The Garmin GPS 12, we use this tool to go out and take points and tracks with this tool this piece of equipment is very essential to out program and is a very handy tool you can go back to the same exact spot year after year watching these weed. This piece of equipment is probably the easiest to use of the three pieces of equipment but that does not mean that it is easy to use. With this tool I can go back to the lab and start to use the USGS Topographic series (maptech) which is what creates the maps that we hand out. I hook the GPS to the computer and I go to work. I transfer all my information from the GPS to the Maptech and the computer automatically. Then we get the area of the weeds and the profile of the land that the weeds are on. After we have all this done then we print of maps and we watch these weeds. That is where the camera come in place we take pictures of every weed that we track and keep document of these pictures and use these pictures as references Our Goals Our main goals for this project are to create a booklet with pictures and information about all the noxious weeds in the Cascade area. Our second goal is to locate and map out the noxious weeds so that we can give our information to the country workers as a way to help them with their job of controlling the infestations. Our future goals are to map out any infestations of Eurasian Milfoil, a noxious weed that has recently been introduced into the Payette Lake. If it reaches Cascade Lake, we hope to map it out. At the moment we are currently growing different types of noxious weeds in the lab so that we can test different techniques of killing them to see what would be the most effective method of control. Eurasian Milfoil When we decided to adopt the noxious weed project, our original plans included locating and mapping out the noxious weeds on land which was also one of the goals of the original group. As the year progressed, we found ourselves learning about aquatic noxious weeds instead of the weeds we had hoped to learn about. Learning about aquatic noxious weeds became a top priority in our case for a new noxious weed had been introduced in Payette Lake, which is north of our Cascade Lake. With extensive research, we found out the following about this "exotic aquatic" plant. Eurasian Milfoil grows rapidly and is known to form a dense mat on the surface of the infested water. Its aggressive growth habit chokes out the native aquatic plants, which leads to a less diverse lake. The mat that can form makes it very hard for light to penetrate the surface. Eurasian Miolfoil can live almost anywhere. It can live in lakes, ponds, shallow water reservoirs, and slow moving streams and rivers. It can reproduce many different ways such as if a part of the plant is detached; the detached part can form a new plant. Anther way that Eurasian Milfoil reproduces is by its flowers and seeds that can be found above the water. Lastly, it can spread by its roots or runners (stolons) in the ground. Another interesting fact that we learned is that not only does this weed affect the life in the lake but also the life around lake. It poses problems in that it limits swimming, boating and fishing. In some cases, it has been known to stop industrial and power generation intakes. Eurasian Milfoil can also cause the water quality to deteriorate and can also cause algae blooms. So far there are three main ways of controlling Eurasian Milfoil: biological, chemical and mechanical. Of these three methods, many attempts at trying to control or get rid of Eurasian Milfoil have had very limited success due to its ability to quickly spread and reproduce. If you have any questions about Eurasian Milfoil or if you have any comments you can e-mail us at snowangel1124@go.com or hotshot83611@yahoo.com .