STERLING - Exotic invasive water weeds and other invasive organisms have slowly filtered into New York waterways over the past decade, clogging waterways and changing the ecological balance. In response, Weeds Watch Out!, an education outreach program, is now available for the public concerned about these waters in the Oswego River Basin.

Renee Jensen, community environmental educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension, presented "Learn to Identify and Control Invasive Water Weeds," Saturday afternoon at the Sterling Nature Center. The event was attended by an enthusiastic handful of people; Kathryn Whitehorne, of Aurelius; Jim Beardsley, of Red Creek; and Shirley Ryan, of Auburn.

"There are good aquatic plants that provide a habitat," Jensen said, "but the invasive ones give them a bad name." The Cooperative Extension now has a free, invasive weed identification guide with pictures of "bad" weeds and look-alike "good" ones. Identification of the invasive plants is the first step their eradication.

Jensen discussed invasive weeds not native to Cayuga County water bodies: water chestnut, Eurasian watermilfoil, curly leaved pond weed, and frogbit, a new one found in Sterling Creek.

These invaders are typically transported to central New York waters by boaters who have picked them up elsewhere on propellers and other boat parts. Some of them, however, got here in unusual ways.

The Eurasian watermilfoil is believed to have come to this country as packaging for fish bait in the 1940s, Jensen said. It reproduced by seed and fragments that grew into plants.

The water chestnut, native to Asia, was brought here for food and medicinal use, but ended up as an ornamental plant in water gardens, transported to other areas by waterfowl.

Read the full report in Sunday's edition of The Citizen.