16th Annual Paddle with a Purpose: Hand-pulling Invasive Water Chestnut
Bucks County Conservation District will be hosting the 16th annual Paddle with a Purpose July 18th, 2025. With Partners from the Bucks County Parks and Recreation Department and Delaware Canal State Park, Paddle with a Purpose is an educational volunteer event that brings the community together to work towards a common goal: eradicating Lake Towhee of invasive Water Chestnuts (Trapa natans).
Where: Lake Towhee, 800 Old Bethlehem Road, Quakertown, PA 18951
Lake Towhee Boat Launch, Haycock Township
When: July 18, 2025 / 9:00 am – 2:00 pm
What to Bring: Food will be provided. Please provide you own water bottle, sunscreen, and bug spray. As noted, water crafts can be borrowed or you can bring your own. There is an option to bring your own craft when you register.
If there are any questions, please contact lfreed@bucksccd.org
Event Instructions: Event organizers will provide a limited number of kayaks, paddles and personal floatation devices to borrow. After a brief training on paddling and on the target plant, participants can freely paddle anywhere on the lake to uproot these plants, collect floating seed pods, and return filled bags to event staff.
This event is an opportunity for our neighbors to work alongside environmental professionals to take part in positive change. If interested, please register here: Please REGISTER HERE and then fill/sign Volunteer Waiver
Each paddler must be registered so we can ensure we have enough seats on kayaks. Hope to see you there!
What it’s all About: The 16th annual Paddle with a Purpose event combines community, paddling instruction, and invasive aquatic plant identification and removal. Over a decade of effort has lessened the workload as we near a maintenance mode for invasive Water Chestnut. Once again, the volunteer event is sponsored by the Bucks County Conservation District, County of Bucks – Parks and Recreation Department and the Delaware Canal and Lake Nockamixon State Parks. Thanks to 16 years of management, Water Chestnut populations have been significantly reduced, eliminating the need for multi-day pulling events. This year’s event is a single day with limited spots – sign up early if interested.
Water chestnut (Trapa natans) is an aquatic invasive plant that impacts lakes by quickly covering the water’s surface, forming dense mats that block sunlight and compete with native vegetation for space and nutrients, disrupting the aquatic food web and habitat structure. The plant also dramatically impedes recreation: dense plant mats clog boat motors and make paddling extremely difficult and spiny seedpods pose hazards to swimmers’ feet and even boat trailer tires.
Because water chestnut is not native to North America (its native range is parts of eastern Europe, western Asia, and portions of Africa), our native wildlife and pest species cannot keep the population in check. In addition to being released from predators and diseases here, the plant also spreads rapidly because it has multiple means of reproduction – it is an annual plant that primarily spreads by seed, but it can also reproduce from small plant fragments. Once a population is established, water chestnut management requires a long-term effort because after plants flower annually in late June, they produce about 10-20 seedpods, which can remain viable on a lake bottom for up to 12 years!
Water chestnut was first documented on Lake Towhee in July 2009; however, at that time over half of the lake was already impacted by this plant. Since August 2009, Bucks County Conservation District (BCCD) has coordinated an annual event branded ‘Paddle with a Purpose’ (PWAP) with partners from the Bucks County Parks and Recreation Department, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), Nockamixon State Park and Delaware Canal State Park. From 2010 on, the event has been timed between mid-June and mid-July to remove plants before the seeds mature.
During the event, volunteers are educated on plant identification and impacts and then paddle (in canoes or kayaks) or slowly motor to different sections of the lake to pull as much of each plant from the lake as possible. Some volunteers work with BCCD staff on shore to assist boaters with unloading their quarry. BCCD staff then haul the plant material to a pre-approved composting site. Lake Nockamixon, the largest reservoir in Bucks County. is only 2 miles downstream of Lake Towhee and has had small populations of water chestnut. By managing the water chestnut population at Lake Towhee, our ultimate goal is protecting large portions of Lake Nockamixon from being overrun by this invasive plant.
One key factor to the success and growth of the event was primarily the strength of the partnership between the county-level organizations and the state agencies: all were committed to preventing a continued, unchecked spread of the plant to Lake Nockamixon. Another major component was a loyal and consistent contribution of local volunteers who return year after year to assist with this event and help spread the word.
Your support, even for just a few hours of your time, is more important than ever to keep up the momentum! Please contact Karen Ogden (Kogden@bucksccd.org) or Logan Freed (Lfreed@bucksccd.org), to get involved.