Homeowners on Lone Lake are a bit closer to cleaning up their weed-choked lake thanks to a grant from the state Department of Ecology.

Island County was awarded $30,000 this week to develop a plan to control Brazilian elodea in Lone Lake. Brazilian elodea is an invasive aquarium plant that is no longer being sold in Washington due to the damage it does to natural bodies of water.

Pat Clark, president of the Lone Lake Homeowners Association, said the grant was something he and other lake homeowners had been hoping for over the past few months.

“We are very excited and grateful for this grant,” he said.

The grant will be administered by Island County.

Clark said this year, the money will be used to hire a biologist to help “determine our options.” Those options include using weed-eating fish and aquatic herbicides. Because the weeds are so well established in the lake, the homeowners will need more grant money in future years to finish the job.

“It will take several years to eradicate the weed,” Clark said.

Clark said the lake deteriorated more than usual last summer due to the dry, hot weather. The weeds grew while the water level dropped.

Fearing that the lake’s status as a fly fishing trophy lake — as well as lakefront property values — could be affected by the infestation, the homeowners association applied for the grant last fall. Options available to solve the problem include stocking the lake with weed-eating carp or, if the infestation is found to be bad enough, the association may use a water-borne herbicide to kill off the Brazilian elodea.

The weed, which appeared in the lake in the mid-1990s, is commonly used in aquariums, said Susan Horton, coordinator for the Island County Weed Control Board. It likely got in the lake when someone dumped an aquarium into the water.

Horton said she is pleased with Ecology’s decision to award a grant for the weed eradication project.

The Washington Department of Ecology awarded grants

of more than $440,000 to help control the spread of non-native aquatic weeds in Northwest Lakes. Without the money, residents and property owners would have borne the costs of controlling these plants. However, in 1991, the Legislature established the

Freshwater Aquatic Weeds Account to provide financial and technical support to help communities tackle the problem.