County, district seeking ISDA grant funding

SANDPOINT — Bonner County hopes to use a combination of herbicides, diver dredging and bottom barriers to go after 900 acres of Eurasian milfoil this summer.

The county is finalizing its grant request to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture for nearly $800,000 in milfoil-control funding. The county learned last month that state has slashed $2 million from the ISDA milfoil budget, leaving only about $1 million dollars for the entire state.

“My best guess is that they’re not going to fund our total request,” Public Works Director Leslie Marshall recently told commissioners.

Marshall is hopeful ISDA will provide enough money to the county to attack 700 acres of the most densely infested spots in the Pend Oreille.

Meanwhile, the Bonner Soil & Water Conservation District is crafting an ISDA grant proposal which would fund the creation of mobile two wash stations boaters would use to clean their watercraft and limit the spread of the noxious weed. The high-pressure, hot-water wash stations could also be used to help ward off new aquatic invaders, such as dreaded zebra mussels.

The district also wants to establish a pilot program to use large swaths of bottom barriers instead of the 10-foot by 10-foot panels currently in use and to procure scuba equipment, which would significantly reduce the cost of diver dredging.

Kate Wilson, chair of the Bonner County Aquatic Invasive Species Task Force, is heading to Boise on Feb. 17 to help promote the conservation district’s grant request. She plans to emphasize to ISDA the need for equipment to keep the noxious weed in check once state funding dries up for good.

“I’d like to see some tools that we can use for more sustainable control methods, hence the large-scale bottom barriers. We think that might have good application in the really dense beds,” Wilson said on Friday.

Bonner County Noxious Weed Superintendent Brad Bluemer will also travel to Boise to promote the county’s grant request. Also high on the county’s list of treatment priorities will be Priest Lake, which has a relatively small infestation that’s already against the ropes after last year’s treatment.

The county plans to use herbicides containing triclopyr, 2,4-D and endothall, according to its application to ISDA. Marshall said on Friday she hopes ISDA will allow the county to use a granular, instead of a liquid, form of triclopyr.

“We would like to try some of the dry triclopyr in a couple places where we know that the liquid did not work,” Marshall said on Friday. “We haven’t had clarification from the Department of Ag as to whether we can do that.”

The county and conservation expect to learn the outcome of the grant requests in March.