Since 1996, Snohomish County SWM and local citizens have been working to control and eventually eradicate the milfoil. Divers spread large sheets of burlap fabric to cover about 1.5 acres of dense milfoil patches in 1997. The burlap blocked sunlight and killed the milfoil plants. The divers positioned the burlap fabric over the milfoil beds, lowered the burlap to the lake bottom, and anchored it in place with sandbags. After three years, the burlap has rotted away, and native aquatic plants have replaced the milfoil plants.
Divers continue to search for milfoil in the shallow waters around the lake shore every summer.
When divers find scattered milfoil plants, they carefully dig them up by hand and put them in bags for disposal on shore. This on-going mifoil control work is funded by Snohomish County SWM and by citizens who live around Lake Goodwin and Lake Shoecraft.