FAQ

Absolutely! They provide habitat and protection for fish and waterfowl, they’re a food source, they recycle oxygen and carbon dioxide, they help prevent shoreline erosion and filter water particles. They become a problem when there is an overgrowth of aquatic weeds, especially on your beach front. 

Yes, it prevents aquatic weed growth 100%, naturally, easily and inexpensively. LakeMat® provides a weed free area exactly where you want leaving other areas natural and undisturbed.

No, your LakeMat® material is porous, it allows gases to escape. For example, a square foot of tarp lets zero gallons of water pass per minute. Another (non-approved) product we found lets through just four gallons per minute. LakeMat® lets through 90 gallons of water per minute. Plus, LakeMat® isn’t slippery to walk on.

Aside from managing aquatic weeds, your LakeMat® also acts as a tension barrier. Think of it like a snowshoe over deep snow. By dispersing your weight, it holds you up. It may still feel a little soft, but you won’t sink in up to your knees. And, you won’t feel the muck and soft sediment on your feet. It feels something like walking on a felt carpet. (Note: We encounter one small lake where we put down a 20 foot pole and didn’t reach any firm lake bottom. Although rare, such ponds are dangerous to walk in under any circumstances. We do not recommend LakeMat®, or anything other than avoiding them altogether). 

Simply take one end and roll it over like you were turning down a bed sheet. There isn’t a top or bottom, so either side works. By rolling it over, the silt and sediment fall off of your LakeMat®. 

Usually not. Once the root system is dead, the plant is done for the season. That said, some aquatic weeds may not start showing up until later in the season. You may want to think about when and where to move your LakeMat®, or better yet, get two!

Yes, and all children should wear approved life preservers at all times at your beach area, even in shallow water or the shoreline. If you’re a parent or responsible for the safety of small children in the water this is absolutely mandatory. Assuming the children have the proper life preservers, the LakeMat® area provides a weed free area in which to play, wade, swim and enjoy all summer long.

Yes LakeMat® is 100% guaranteed for five years against defects in materials and workmanship with normal use. Obviously common sense tells you, you shouldn’t try running your boat motor prop into it, or starting your wave runner in shallow water over your LakeMat®. Jumping up and down on it with a pitchfork probably isn’t a good idea either...

Yes, our LakeMat®  material is the only material approved for use by the Michigan DEQ (the state we live in).  You may or may not need a permit to use your LakeMat®, depending on the state you live in. 

Fish and other aquatic life need aquatic vegetation for food. That’s why you’d never want to kill all the aquatic weeds. Fish also use weeds for cover. But  the problem with invasive species of aquatic weeds, such as eurasian milfoil, is it grows so thick it interferes with fish bedding and spawning. An overgrowth of aquatic weeds can actually decrease the fish population, which is another good reason to create open areas near the shore. LakeMat® doesn’t harm fish, it helps them by creating open areas.

If your lake bottom is rocky, you probably are on a young or “oligotrophic” lake. These lakes are full of oxygen and hold very little nutrients for aquatic weeds. You can use a LakeMat® to cover the stones, making for more comfortable and safer wading.

An invasive aquatic plant is not a native, naturally occurring plant. Many invasive aquatic weeds were first brought here to be used in aquariums and ornamental ponds. Over the years, they escaped and found their way into North American waterways. Invasive plant species will often choke out native aquatic weeds, creating imbalance in the lake’s ecosystem. 

Aquatic plant growth depends on four main factors.

• Available sunlight. Aquatic weeds need sunlight to grow, just like your lawn.
• Lake bottom nutrients, mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, just like your lawn.
• Water depth. Most weeds won’t grow in water more than 15 feet.
• Water temperature. The colder the water, the less growth.

You have an over abundance of  aquatic weeds because they get plenty of sunlight, lots of nutrients and your beach area is less than 15 feet deep. If you have a lot of aquatic weeds you can either hope for a really cold, cloudy summer with no rain, or you’ll have to deal with them.

If you describe your lake bottom as mushy, silty, mucky, etc., you’re probably describing the bottom of an old, “eutrophic” lake. The soft bottom is a result of thousands of years of tree leaves and other plants falling into the water and decaying each year. It’s thousands of years of aquatic weeds growing, dying off each fall, decaying and adding to the bottom sediment.
All lakes age, (see “The Age of Lakes”) it is a natural accelerating process leaving older lakes with a lot of very fertile sediment creating a great environment for aquatic weeds to grow.

If you left your LakeMat® in one spot and never moved it, eventually enough silt and sediment would settle on it to allow aquatic weeds to begin growing on the mat itself. So even if you only want one area of your lakefront to be free of aquatic weeds, you’ll need to turn over your LakeMat® at least once per season.

Assuming you could actually get a permit to dump sand in your lake, here are some of the problems, (we’ve encountered all of them). Getting the permit in the first place. Once the sand is in place, silt and sediment float in, settle on the sand, weed fragments and seeds take root and the whole process starts over again, right on top of the sand. Any sand you put on your shore will kill the grass or plants under the sand, which will then wash into the lake and begin eroding your shoreline.  It can be quite expensive and/or back breaking work. The sand will sink, (because it’s heavier than the silt beneath it) wash out and otherwise, mysteriously disappear within a season or two.

Well, you could put down a tarp and hold it down with rocks, sandbags or something, but there are problems. As the aquatic weeds below it decay they release gases that bubble up under the tarp and make it float to the surface.  Tarps are slippery to walk on and they won’t lay flat on the bottom.  Tarps don’t allow transfer of water or gases so they kill nearly 100% of the macroinvertebrates (microscopic organisms) that live on the lake bottom . Tarps aren’t approved for such usage, but your LakeMat® material is.

You can, but why use them if you don’t have to? As we’ve learned from using aquatic herbicides, there are several problems with them.

• They’re quite expensive.
• They may drift and kill aquatic weeds in non-targeted areas.
• They aren’t 100% effective in the area you do target.
• The weeds they do kill decay and sink to the bottom creating more silt and muck.
• The decayed weeds become fertilizer for next year’s crop of aquatic weeds.
• The bottom is still mucky, it’s actually a little more mushy with the added dead weeds.
• Aquatic herbicides are toxic.

Two big reasons!

1) You actually create more weeds. Most of the lake weeds you struggle with reproduce by either “fragmentation” or “seed banks.” When aquatic weeds are broken or cut, tiny fragments break off, sink to the bottom, take root and create new unwanted plants. Also, if aquatic weeds are disturbed by raking or cutting they will drop seeds, creating several new plants.

2) It is a lot of back breaking, messy work. The aquatic weeds you take out of the lake have to be put somewhere, (or leave them on the lawn and kill the grass). We’ve spent hours wading in the muck getting weeds out and hauling them away only to watch them grow back in a very short time.

No, not under normal circumstances. Your LakeMat® has a built-in weight system to hold it in place, and keep it flat against the lake bottom. It would take an extremely strong current, or intense storm surge to dislodge your LakeMat® from your beach front.