Hydrilla is a formidable nonnative species. It can grow an inch in a single day, and it spreads through flowers, potato-like tubers and can even be established from a tiny fragment. It grows densely and chokes out native plants and inhibits recreation like boating and swimming.
The plant was detected in October in DuPage County. It was the second recorded instance in the state. The Department of Natural Resources has activated a decade-old hydrilla task force, which unlocked resources for short- and long-term management.
Claire Snyder is the aquaculture program specialist with the department. She says it will be a long road towards recovery.
“Unfortunately, the treatment process for hydrilla is neither simple nor short term," she said. "So, any kind of management becomes really a long-term management strategy. In this particular case, our goal is to do a lot of management very quickly in the first couple of years here.”
Snyder also says that while the presence of hydrilla in Illinois is serious, the department is prepared to take on the challenge.
“We do have the management tools in place, so we're not necessarily out of our depth when we're handling this," Snyder said, "but it is something that, as soon as we heard about it and realized the extent of what we're looking at, that it's really serious, and it's something that that we can't let slide, and we can't wait on.”
To prevent hydrilla entering waterways, Snyder says residents should be careful to completely clean and dry out any equipment that comes out of the water, and to never dump home aquariums out – the department suspects this was the cause of the DuPage outbreak.
The plant can also be difficult to identify, so state officials ask the public to reach out if they suspect they find hydrilla.
Click below for more on how to ID hydrilla: