SIBLEY &045; St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge manager Randy Breland is cautious with his words concerning the possible reopening of a pair of lakes that were closed last fall due to an invasive exotic plant.

He is confident the chemicals being used to treat the common salvinia &045; a water fern from southeastern Brazil that has choked out many lakes in the South in recent years &045; are alleviating the problem, but you won’t find any promises with this destructive plant.

&uot;I don’t want to guarantee it at this point, but we’re working forward to opening it back up for duck season this year,&uot; Breland said. &uot;It’s looking good at this point.&uot;

The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks has set the first date for duck season at Nov. 21, but it only extends through that weekend.

The real fun begins the following weekend when the dates spread from Nov. 28 to Dec. 23, while a third season runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 25, 2004.

Breland first announced the closing of Gilliard and Swamp last November, after a retired LSU professor &045; at the refuge for some fishing &045; informed the St. Catherine staff of the rapidly spreading salvinia.

&uot;The public has been very understanding. Usually when you close a popular lake, you fall under criticism,&uot; Breland said. &uot;But the way the information got out and what we’re doing, the public is very savvy. I think they realize it takes quite a while to drum up the money to accomplish this.&uot;

St. Catherine got help from the regional office in Atlanta to purchase the necessary Sonar, a direct combatant of the free-floating plant that costs upward of $250 per acre.

Since Breland and his staff were forced to wait for the Mississippi River, which flows into the refuge, to drop its levels, attacking the plant that consumed much of the 400-acre refuge did not start until late August.

However, on the first spot spray from airboats and releasing of slower-action pellets from planes by a chemical company based out of Gonzales, La., much of the common salvinia began to eradicate.

&uot;We were told it might take as long as six to eight weeks,&uot; Breland said. &uot;The staff sprayed the liquid, and it started to brown out in a couple of days. The pellets take a lot longer, but the reason they’re used is because it falls down through the vegetation into the water.&uot;

The way it works is the chemicals spread out into the water column and permeate everywhere water is. Then the plant dies and decomposes at the floor of the body of water.

Breland was glad to see how quick Gilliard and Swamp took to the chemicals but was a little bothered by bar pits, which were heavily shaded and perhaps overlooked by the plane and underneath brush where areas of green still existed.

The chemical company, which Breland called highly cooperative, was back Wednesday for another once over.

&uot;The ideal thing to happen is to have a good hard freeze,&uot; he said. &uot;If we can hit it hard with the chemical and have a freeze when it’s in its dormancy, we should be good to go. Of course, there are no guarantees.&uot;

There are two forms of salvinia, which is native to the Amazon River Basin but has become more apparent in American recently.

As the name suggests, common salvinia is what most lakes struggle with. Giant salvinia, the more aggressive of the species, is more cause for worry.

&uot;The chemical works equally on both species, but the (giant salvinia) chokes the lake much faster than it did here,&uot; Breland said. &uot;We’d be more concerned if ours were more aggressive.&uot;

Breland said neither the plant itself nor the chemicals have harmed any wildlife on the refuge, and he does not anticipate it will since salvinia is non-toxic.

&uot;It doesn’t stay long enough to do anything major except it kills some of the beneficial aquatic plants. But that’s the tradeoff,&uot; he said. &uot;We haven’t seen any fish kills or anything like that.&uot;

Despite the two lakes being out of action last year, Breland said it did not affect the sales of permits to the refuge that much.

While St. Catherine is taking the necessary means to treat the adversarial situation, the grim reality of the state of affairs with salvinia is that we won’t be bidding it adieu any time soon.

&uot;Unfortunately, we’re seeing an ever-increasing problem in the Southeast,&uot; Breland said. &uot;Because this stuff won’t go away, the best we can do is to hammer it out when it rears its ugly head.&uot;