STOCKTON-
This year’s water hyacinth issue may be the worse yet. Various Stockton officials have been coming up with creative ways to combat the water weed which has suffocated much of the Port.
Looking across the Port of Stockton, your view is overrun by this weed. “I think it’s terrible, this stuff here… it’s bad,” Hobert Green, a visitor from Oakland said. The water hyacinth ‘visits’ annually, blocking the waterway and making it challenging for boaters to move through the water. “The boats here … they can’t move.”
Hobert Green visits his children occasionally while he enjoys seeing his family, he’s getting tired of the view. “This makes this bad for Stockton.” Different groups have proposed creative ways to remove and reuse the weed. The Port of Stockton hired out Aqua Harvest to chop the hyacinth up. The company told FOX40 some are looking to turn the plant into compost and even cattle feed.
The Department of Boating and Waterways will continually spray herbicide to ‘control’ the weed. They admitted they haven’t found a way to permanently get rid of it. But some don’t mind the hyacinth. “Doesn’t matter to me. What matters is catching the fish for fun,” Jennie Montiel-Gonzeles, a Stockton resident said.
While some are unfathomed by the sight, Hobert would like to see more of the water and believes the hyacinth will turn people away.
The 100th annual US Power Squadron took place here over the weekend, officials said the invasive plant did slow some boats down.
