First responders were at Ames Pond in Stoughton, Massachusetts, on Thursday, searching for a kayaker who’d been reported in distress.

Drivers were asked to avoid the area amid the search, which closed Highland Street between West and Canton streets.

The Kingston Fire & Emergency Management and first responders from other neighboring towns said they were helping in various ways.

More details about what happened weren’t immediately available.

Garlic mustard might look like an innocent wildflower, but conservationists say it’s one of the most invasive plants in Massachusetts.

Despite its serrated leaves, delicate white flower and unmistakable scent, garlic mustard is on the state’s Prohibited Plant List. 

“It’s like wildfire,” said Lisey Good, founder of Wild Cohasset, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring native habitats and removing invasive species. “I hate garlic mustard so much.”

The biennial plant, originally brought to New England by European settlers hundreds of years ago as a food source and herbal remedy, has since become a major ecological threat. While some people still use garlic mustard in salads, soups, and pesto, the plant can quickly overwhelm forests and crowd out native species. Good said each stem has “tons of seeds in there.” 

“This plant might have 7,000 seeds,” she told WBZ-TV. “Next year this plant will die, but all around it will be 7,000 new baby garlic mustards.”

That’s why Good founded Wild Cohasset in 2015. As garlic mustard spreads, it pushes out native plants that local wildlife, like ruby-throated hummingbirds and butterflies, depend on for survival.

“They’re putting out a kind of chemical warfare,” she said. “It’s a poison that’s similar to cyanide, but it’s not harmful to humans. It’s just a mild amount. But it’s enough to change the soil chemistry so that nothing else can grow around it.”

Recently, Cohasset High School seniors helped Good remove the plant from Wheelwright Park.

“I play at the baseball fields, I’ve been around here awhile, so I just want to make sure it’s going to be here, be healthy for the next generation,” said senior Ronan Carnes.

“We should stop it while it’s just one weed, rather than like 7,000,” added fellow senior Emma Lee.

Timing is critical when it comes to garlic mustard removal. Experts recommend pulling the plant as early in the spring as possible, once the ground has thawed. May is often the easiest time to identify garlic mustard because its distinctive white flowers are in bloom.

The goal is to remove the plants before they set seed. After about June 20, conservationists say the risk increases dramatically. The seeds can spill from the stems during removal and spread to new areas.

Garlic mustard often spreads when people remove it from their yards and place it in compost piles. Seeds end up at municipal compost sites, transfer stations, or in community mulch piles, where they’re unknowingly redistributed and introduced to new areas.

Instead, experts recommend bagging the plants and throwing them in the trash.

For Good, the work is about more than removing a weed. It’s about helping people understand the connection between plants, wildlife, and healthy ecosystems.

“It’s so gratifying to see that people learn what to do,” she said. “People are planting more native plants in their yards for wildlife, and I think people have really started to understand the connection between plants and the creatures that live with us.”

There may also be a natural solution on the horizon.

Good points to a native wildflower called golden ragwort, which pollinators love, and researchers have found can successfully compete with garlic mustard. She recommends planting it in areas where garlic mustard has taken hold.

“It’s something people can do that tangibly helps birds and butterflies and bees and whole forests,” she said.

More information on removing garlic mustard can be found here.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office said the owners of an East Taunton gas station failed to report the release of 31,000 gallons of gasoline into the environment.

Prosecutors called it the “largest land-based gas release in Southeast Massachusetts history.”

Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed suit against Amaro’s Market and its trustees Two Brothers Realty Trust. Dependable Service Company, a petroleum service company in Plymouth, was also named.

They’re accused of failing to report the spill to the Department of Environmental Protection and failing to take steps to protect public health.

Prosecutors said the gasoline started leaking as early as April 2023 and continued until August 2023. The state said the leak contaminated soil, groundwater and the air.

“The AGO alleges that Amaro and Dependable ignored obvious warning signs of a gasoline leak, including persistent gasoline odors at the gas station and in the basement of a neighboring property, a near-constant presence of gasoline and water in parts of the gas pump equipment that should remain dry, repeated fuel alarms, and uncommonly high fuel deliveries and inventory discrepancies,” the attorney general said in a release Wednesday.

NBC 10 News sought comment from the defendants.

The state says in its lawsuit that gasoline vapors created an explosion risk.

“According to the complaint, testing in August and September 2023 showed significant levels of gasoline vapors inside residential properties in the vicinity of the gas station, as well as gasoline mixed within the groundwater,” the state said.

“Exposure to gasoline fumes can cause lung irritation as well as other symptoms such as confusion, disorientation, headache, blurred vision, and dizziness. Plants and animals can also be harmed by coming into contact with gasoline through soil and groundwater contamination,” the release said.

Prosecutors said they want a court to order Amaro and Dependable to pay cleanup costs and civil penalties and for them to comply with state regulations on hazardous materials and storage tanks.