The City of Williams Lake is set to purchase a lake harvester to help remove weeds from the lake.

Council approved the purchase of the harvester, which is used to crop or remove aquatic vegetation. The proposed unit is designed to cut and collect weeds at a maximum depth of 4.5 feet.

The City has made an offer of $25,000 to purchase a used harvester with a private group. The deal is on hold until permitting is attained.

“We have a weed problem in our lake, and it’s bad,” Councillor Scott Nelson said. “If you go down to Scout Island, you cannot even get your boat out into the water without getting stuck in the weeds. You cannot even go swimming without getting caught in the weeds.”

Nelson said that the plan would be to cut the weeds on an annual basis.

“We take the weeds to shore, we either burn them on-site, or we will take them to our landfill and use them as part of our recycling composting project,” Nelson stated.

The City had initially budgeted $30,000 to purchase a lake harvester.

A look at a lake harvester (Photo courtesy of Scott Nelson)