Wayland water committee advances Heard Pond harvest and herbicide contracts

WAYLAND -- March 10, 2026, Wayland's Surface Water Quality Committee advances hand-harvest and herbicide contracts for Heard Pond. Chair Thomas Klem and member Thomas J. Largy told the panel Tuesday that SOLitude Lake Management has submitted a water chestnut hand-harvesting contract capped at $9,900, deliberately under the town's $10,000 RFP threshold, with a 25 percent overrun allowance, plus a separate ClearCast herbicide contract covering roughly 13 acres of the southwestern cove. Largy said last year's first herbicide application produced plants that "had browned, but they weren't entirely disintegrating," and warned that an untreated perimeter required by U.S. Fish and Wildlife has expanded the seed bank in an 85-acre pond from which volunteers have pulled "over 3 million plants" since 2000. On Dudley Pond, member Steve Garone will approach OARS to replace departed consultant Ben Wetherill on roughly $1,500 in annual meter-based chemistry work; $1,200 in lab testing continues twice yearly. The committee voted 4-0 to approve February minutes and 4-0 to adjourn at 7:55 p.m.