Roland Lake is a 30-acre recreational lake in Virginia. In 2017 the lake was suffering from a long-term accumulation of mucky, nutrient-rich organic sediment that had allowed excessive dense invasive weeds to grow in virtually all areas of the lake 10 feet deep or less.
This meant that it had become virtually impossible to launch a boat or swim out into the lake for several years, impairing the recreational use of the lake and degrading water quality as algae blooms clustered around the tops of the weed mass as it protruded at the surface of the lake.
Three years earlier a considerable sum had been spent on dredging the lake to get rid of the organic sediment that was facilitating the excessive proliferation of invasive hydrilla, milfoil and pond weed. Despite this, the weeds and algae were blooming stronger than ever.

Dense invasive weeds including pondweed in Roland Lake in 2017
Bathymetric scans produced the weed “heat map” shown below which vividly depicts the dense invasive weed growth in all areas of the lake less than 10 feet deep.Â
The objective of our intervention was to digest and eliminate the thick layer of mucky nutrient-rich sediment that provides the rooting bed in which the invasive weeds grow. This is know as “bio-dredging”

Vegetation “heat map” in 2017
(Red is the highest density of aquatic vegetation, blue is clear of aquatic vegetation.)

Vegetation “heat map” 2019
Clean-Flo installed and commissioned a system incorporating 10 RADOR aeration units in April 2018 and an intensive bioaugmentation treatment program was commenced.

Roland Lake VA in summer 2020