Mulberry's Lake Jonathan reappears as vegetation killed off
MULBERRY — Four months after Mulberry began spraying weed-choked Lake Jonathan to kill the vegetation that was swallowing it, Charles Mossholder is ready to dust off his fishing pole.
“I haven't been able to fish out here for seven or eight years because I couldn't get my boat out in the water,” said Mossholder, 71, who lives along the lake's eastern shoreline. “There wasn't any water left. But now, this is great. This lake looks better than it has for at least 30 years.”
Wade Pharis of Applied Aquatic Management in Eagle Lake said his crews have treated the lake four times and it will take about that many more treatments to finish the job.
“We're treading lightly, trying to do this gradually,” he said. “If we did it all at once, we would have risked having a fish kill because it would have taken the oxygen from the water.”
When the city initiated the project in April, Mossholder could see only a sliver of the lake's northern edge outside his back door. Now, the glistening water stretches to the south of his yard as well.