Or they can give up the water-skiing, swimming and kayaking that drew them to the lake in the first place. She also may have to sell her power boat, since skiers fear entanglement in the weeds. It's worked before for the milfoil, a nuisance since 1938. But the hydrilla, which is competing with the milfoil as a nuisance, is much hardier, with tubers like a potato that likely won't be affected by the drying, experts say. It rained Saturday, which prevented lakeside residents from spreading burlap and black plastic over the hydrilla to try to kill it by depriving it of sunlight.
Residents have just a month to fight the weed.
On Feb. 12, the Lower Colorado River Authority refills the lake. Some lakesiders want to bring in a fish to eat the hydrilla. Sterile carp have been imported to clear other of the state's lakes of the pest. But the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department maintains the carp also eats vegetation that provides homes for sport fish. Instead, the parks department suggest a herbicide they say won't pollute the drinking water that the city of Austin draws from the lake, said Mary Gilroy, an environmental scientist with the city's Watershed Protection Department.