Duckweed problems

No.

I presumed that. Which means, you cannot do anything. It is not appropriate and may be a finable offense for you to take matters into your own hands.

The board has made a decision and determined a course of action, and there is nothing you can do. If you don't like the decisions the board makes, then vote them out.

But I do need to let you know, duckweed is darn near impossible to control. It is very expensive to control and extremely resilient.

Many HOAs opt for allowing it to naturalize.

You don't mention the type or function of the pond. Is it a retention pond? or built by the developer as an architectural feature? Could an areation fountain be installed? Does it drain and fill up again?

get ducks.

they love it, and are all natural.

Ducks may create another problem. We finally got rid of ducks after many complaints about the mess they leave on driveways, etc.

Ducks go by 99% instinct.

Our entire development was built on parcels of land that used to contain a large lake and wetlands. It was all backfilled and covered over and after a time, they were able to build homes on it.

The problem is, nobody told the ducks. So every year we get scads of the poor things, looking for their old rest stop.

We have one mid-size retention basin that we loving call "The Lake."

It's probably 2% the size of what used to be here.

Anyway, yea, we get duckweed.

We explored all sorts of "cures" for it. All were vastly too expensive. Part of the problem is the in-flow and out-flow.

We get all sorts of runoff from yard treatments (fertilizers, etc), which isn't conducive to duckweed control.

We have an outflow, which is also not conducive to duckweed control.

Early in the season we make an attempt to manually reduce the growth, but have to be very careful about that because it can actually make the growth spurt worse if little pieces break off.

We do NOT have anything in KY that requires us to maintain algae or weed-free basins.

I can see something like that in Florida, but I've not seen that model as you move more North.

The ONLY thing we have to "maintain" for is to ensure no mosquitoes, in which case all we do is contact the local health department, who will come out and test and spray for mosquitoes.

Two years ago one of the residents whose property backs up to "The Lake" took it upon himself to attempt to kill back the duckweed with a contact chemical.

Did it work? Sure. The duckweed turned a beautiful mud brown in color when it died, it got really nasty, then we got outrageous algae blooms (one of the POSITIVE things about duckweed is that it prevents algae blooms). We also got an ugly and stinky fish kill, too.

Now we just leave it alone. It does produce some very pretty little flowers and the ducks and fish seem to like it.

Oh, that's another thing, one of our residents investigated using grass carp to control the duckweed. The problem is, that is one vegetation grass carp aren't too crazy about. Oh, they'll eat it EVENTUALLY, but only after they munch down all the other vegetation in the water. Koi will work, but. . .

One more thing, aeration WILL help keep the duckweed SOMEWHAT controlled as it does thrive more in water that is fairly still. The more agitation in the water, the smaller the problem.

Anyway, good luck to you. I, for one, can certainly understand why the board has made the decision they have, and I still strongly suggest that NOBODY do ANYTHING without working with the board.

Unless you want a bigger problem with fish kills, stinky algae blooms, or an even worse duckweed growth.

Hi, I am facing a similar issue, have you been able to resolve this?

The pond in my neighborhood was a protected wetland. It was released once we contacted DNR and complained about its appearance (released as in no longer protected). Initially the issue was with algae because half of the pond is too shallow (approx 1foot in dept). Over about ten years we now have bank erosion (largely due to muskrats). We also have out of control vegetation growing in and out of the pone around the banks.
I have joined our board in effort to help solve the issue.
solution 1: dredge the pond to make it a few inches deeper. this only helps with algae and cost thousands of dollars.
Solution 2: Rip rap. the cost is reasonable. With this we can restore the banks, deter muskrat borrowing, eliminate weeds.

I am having a hard time getting board memebers and neighbors to agree to a solution.