By William Tauro

This past week a motorized floating harvesting machine maneuvered it’s way around the Mystic River banks removing evasive water chestnuts that have taken over the entire area.

WATER CHESTNUTS COMMUNITY EVENT JUNE 27

Three Community events have been scheduled to help remove the invasive Water Chestnut from the Mystic River. Using canoes, kayaks, and small boats, volunteers will pull water chestnuts out of the water by hand and then deposit the harvested plants at a designated shore site. Please register for the June 27th event.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO CARP IN THE MYSTIC?

Many big carp have died recently on the Mystic. We have reported the event to state agencies and had conversations with fish experts. The state experts’ best understanding of this is that it is a natural die off resulting from stresses from spawning in combination with some environmental factor (changes in water temperature, bacteria or virus that specifically affects carp, etc.). We do not think this is related to pollution.