The long fight to remove Asian Clams from Lake George has cost local governments and environmental groups millions of dollars a year. As Time Warner Cable News' Matt Hunter reports, crews are attacking the harmful invasive species at a new spot this week.

HAGUE, N.Y. – Environmental groups have been trying to limit the spread of Asian Clams in Lake George for years.

"It's inevitable, once an invasive gets into a water body, they're going to spread," said Lake George Association Executive Director Walter Lender. "They overpower any other plant or animal species in the area and they change the whole balance."

"What we don't want is a population explosion, where we have dead and dying clams all over Lake George beaches,” Lake George Park Commission Executive Director Dave Wick said. "That hasn't happened yet, and we hope to keep it from happening."

All week at the Rogers Rock Campground in Hague, a team of 11 have endured cold and wet conditions as part of a multi-agency eradication effort. The public beach is one of two new Lake George locations where the invasive species was found earlier this year.

"We have had good success in treating them, but not 100 percent success,” Wick said Wednesday. “If you leave just a few clams out there, they can repopulate."

"We are basically laying mats to cover where those clams were and the area around them," said Andrew Lewis, co-owner of Aquatic Invasive Management, the Au Sable Forks-based company based company contracted to do the project. "It is cold weather grunt labor, essentially."

Weighed down with more than 6,000 bags of sand and steel bars known as rebar, the 50-foot-long mats will cover two acres and are designed to suffocate the clams living below in shallow soil.

"The goal is to deprive the clams of oxygen and their food source by laying down an impermeable barrier," Lewis said.

"Those clams that were underneath them will be dead, and hopefully that will eradicate the clams in this area," Lender said.

Using mostly recycled material from past projects, Wick the price tag is between $30,000 and $40,000. The cost is shared by the lake’s Asian Clam Task Force, which is comprised of state and local governments, the LGPC and environmental groups like the LGA and Fund for Lake George.

Designed to protect the pristine quality of Lake George, stakeholders believe it's worth it.

"The impact of Asian Clams or any other invasive is very costly,” Lender said. “It's tough conditions to do this on, but it's very important for Lake George."