Mechanical shredding of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes):: Effects on water quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California

Management actions to control invasive aquatic species can have significant ecosystem-scale effects. We evaluated the water chemistry and nutrient effects of mechanical shredding to control water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) in an agricultural slough and a. tidal wetland on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California. Shredding was conducted with two types of shredder boats in fall of 2003 and another boat in spring of 2004. Shredding measurably affected water quality, but specific effects varied as a function of shredding site and season. Significant increases were observed for total]qeldahl nitrogen and total phosphorus for all experiments. Dissolved oxygen effects varied by site, decreasing after shredding at the agricultural slough but increasing at the tidal wetland. The increase in dissolved oxygen likely resulted from tidal incursions from the adjacent river. A year-long time series of dissolved oxygen data indicated a negative relationship between hyacinth abundance and dissolved oxygen concentrations. Hyacinth contained similar tissue concentrations of mercury to underlying sediments, suggesting that plant harvesting could aid mercury remediation efforts. Simple mass calculations indicated that Delta-wide shredding operations could cause between 0.1% and 9.6% increases in the overall abundance of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in the Delta water column. Results suggest that local effects of management actions to control invasive aquatic plants will vary widely as a function of site-specific hydrology, but that estuary-wide effects would be limited.