The state Department of Environmental Conservation is hoping that two local ponds, each currently overrun with non-native species, will be able to be reclaimed with brook trout. DEC staff said the restocking could occur as early as next fall.

Lost Pond, which is located near Mountain Pond north of Paul Smith’s College, and Embody Pond in the St. Regis canoe area, will be hit with a pesticide intended to eliminate golden shiners and yellow perch, respectively.

The two ponds have each been reclaimed before. Embody Pond was reclaimed in 1958 and Lost Pond was shocked a few years later in 1969. Both ponds are located in Franklin County. Embody Pond is about one acre in size, right near the northern shore of Long Pond. Lost Pond is about three acres.

Lance Dufrey, regional fisheries manager for the DEC in Ray Brook said the project to reclaim the two ponds came about because the fisheries in each pond are severely degraded, and the DEC has the budget and the staff to do the work this year.

“The fishery in both ponds has deteriorated to the point where we feel it’s now time to do that (the reclamation),” he said. “It was a combination of factors, and may happen as soon as this fall.”

Dufrey added that DEC staff had noticed the non-native fish in the two ponds at least a decade ago, when staff found golden shiners in Lost Pond in 2006 and yellow perch in Embody Pond in 2000.

“We would consider them non-native fish,” Dufrey said in an interview last week. “We’re trying to restore native brook trout populations and create a brook trout fishery at the same time.”

Dufrey said that pond reclamation doesn’t happen all that often, saying he remembers only four water bodies that have been reclaimed in the last 10 years. Franklin County’s Ledge Pond in the town of Santa Clara was reclaimed in 2007, which appears to the be the most recent reclamation in the area.

“It’s not that common a thing,” he said.

Dufrey said the DEC is not sure why these two ponds have gotten non-native fish repeatedly, but said it was likely from people bringing illegal bait fish to the ponds with them.

He added that the shiners and perch will out-compete brook trout for food, leading to the trout dying off and the proliferation of the non-natives.

DEC staff will use a pesticide known as Rotenone to remove the unwanted fish. The DEC has filed permit applications with the Adirondack Park Agency to get approval for the work.

The Rotenone will be added to the ponds to create a concentration of 1 part per million (ppm), but Dufrey said it will only affect the fish and shouldn’t harm any wildlife such as loons or ducks. Or domestic dogs for that matter.

“Probably the dog wouldn’t want to drink from it because it does have a distinctive odor. (And) mammals can break the chemical down in their digestive systems,” he said.

“Plants are unimpacted. Animals like mink or birds like loons are unimpacted; they’re not affected by Rotenone at all,” he said. “We have seen some minor impact on aquatic salamanders.

“It actually kills fish at the cellular level by interfering with respiration at the cellular level,” he said. “There are other aquatic organisms that are impacted by a Rotenone treatment and those would include things like the zooplankton species that are in the pond water.

“But those quickly come back because there’s non-susceptible life stages in the water.”

Dufrey said the Rotenone breaks down quickly if the water is warm and there is a lot of sunlight.

“If we have a sunny and warm-ish late fall, it could be detoxified before ice-over,” he added.

Dufrey said it’s possible that both ponds could be restocked with brook trout as early as next fall, but that could depend on DEC’s fish hatcheries having enough trout for the stocking.

He also said that once the trout are re-introduced, the trout can grow fairly quickly.

“What we typically see is that after brook trout are stocked into a pond that has been reclaimed the growth is very, very rapid on those fish,” he said. “The aquatic invertebrates have been in the pond without any fish predators and so the populations of the invertebrates jumps up pretty high pretty quickly.

“And the brook trout when they first hit the pond have unlimited food and consequently their growth is quite rapid.”