United States Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut joined state Rep. Christine Palm, whose district includes Essex, Chester, and Deep River, recently at a press conference at Chrisholm Marina in Chester to detail state and federal efforts to fight hydrilla, an invasive water plant that in less than 10 years has become a major ecological threat to the Connecticut River.

Palm is the House of Representatives vice chair of the state legislature’s joint Environmental Committee. State Rep. Devin Carney, who represents Lyme, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, and part of Westbrook, also attended the press conference.

Hydrilla can grow as much as six inches a day, creating slimy mats of vegetation that clog waterways, jam boat engines, make the river unfit for swimming, and harm the habitats of fish and wildlife. In addition, fast-growing hydrilla crowds out the native aquatic plants.

“It is choking the ecological system,” said Rhea Drozdenko of The Connecticut River Conservancy.

As a result, the invasive plant causes not only ecological damage but also harms everything from recreational opportunities to the economic well-being of businesses focused on the river.

Palm proposed legislation that passed last year setting up an Office of Invasive Aquatic Species with funding of some $380,000 to be administered by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) for research on how to combat the rapid expansion of hydrilla within Connecticut waterways.

“The important thing, to begin with, was to get a budget line,” she says, explaining when there is such a line, people take notice. This year, Palm has asked for additional funding for the program.

At the same time, Blumenthal is asking for a continuing federal appropriation of as much as $25 million administered through the Army Corps of Engineers to increase research into ways to combat hydrilla.

“It is a clear and present danger,” he said. “This stuff is not going away. We need a long-term and sustained program. We need to match the ferocity of this aquatic species.”

Hydrilla, native to Asia, originally got into United States waterways in Florida, most likely through emptying a fish tank containing the plant into a river or stream. From there, it spread methodically up the East Coast.

Now it has been found in the Connecticut River as far as Agawam, Massachusetts.

Still, though it is all hydrilla, tests have shown that the genome of the hydrilla in Connecticut is unique, not matching the genome of the species in other areas.

So far, attempts to combat hydrilla have been unsuccessful. Large mats, called benthic mats, can be placed on the river bottom to retard growth, but that has proven of very limited utility. Right now, CAES is doing tests with a nontoxic red dye with properties similar to herbicide sprays that could be used to control the hydrilla to determine how long the sprays would remain in the water and where they would likely drift.

There are also efforts on the part of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to raise awareness among boaters of how they can prevent the spread of hydrilla, for instance, by not picking up a sprig and dropping it in another location and by making sure their boats are free of hydrilla before launching them.

“It colonizes very rapidly,” said Matthew Goclowski, a DEEP spokesperson. “Even a little piece can grow.”

Representatives from a number of agencies and civic groups attended the press conference, among them not only DEEP and CAES but also The Connecticut River Conservancy as well as two boatmen with long experience on the river, Bob Petzold of the family that bought Chrisholm Marina in Chester in 2020, and Mark Yuknat, who for many years owned RiverQuest, the boat that does nature cruises on the river. RiverQuest has since been sold to the Connecticut River Museum.

“I’ve been on the river for 50 years of my life, and this stuff is choking off the river,” Petzold said.

“There were places I can’t even take people into anymore,” Yuknat added.

Palm emphasized that the fight against the spread of hydrilla is not just for professionals in the field.

“We urge everybody to get involved, support funding and research,” she said.

“Fighting this invasive species is the responsibility of all of us.”