State hopes to out-'mussel' aquatic pests

COEUR d’ALENE — Don’t move a mussel.

That’s a message Idaho residents and visitors will be hearing more of.

It’s part of the state’s strategy to keep invasive quagga and zebra mussels out of Idaho’s waterways.

“We’d like this to become like wearing your seat belt,” said Amy Ferriter, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s invasive species program manager.

Billboards and boat ramp signs are going up. Public television spots are being planned.

Brochures will be sent out with utility bills.

Ferriter and Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, spoke to nearly 20 people who attended a public meeting Wednesday at the Coeur d’Alene library held to inform people about the problems posed by the mussels sand explain how Idaho is taking action to keep them from invading the state.

Anderson championed new legislation enacted in April that requires every boat being transported on specific Idaho roads be inspected for potential infestations and decontaminated before being launched in any Idaho lake or river.

Local stations are at Cabela’s near the state line, the Huetter rest stop on Interstate 90, Farragut State Park, Cocolalla Lake and Oldtown.

The Idaho Invasive Species Act includes provisions for water monitoring, prevention through the inspections, education and outreach.

It is paid for by the sale of Idaho Invasive Species Fund stickers which are permits the new law requires every vessel have before being launched in the state’s waters.

The stickers cost from $5 for non-motorized smaller vessels to $10 for boats registered in Idaho and $20 for out of state vessels.

The inspection program started last weekend with 15 stations now operating throughout the state.

“They did decontaminate three or four jet skis at Farragut,” said Lloyd Knight, ISDA Division of Plant Technologies administrator. 

Whether or not an inspected vessel is decontaminated, power-washed with water that is at least 140-degrees, depends on where it has been in the past 60 days and if there are visible signs of possible risk.

Dirty boats can expect to be decontaminated, said Anderson.

Some have questioned why Idaho boaters who remain within the state have to pay for the permits, he said.

He said we can’t expect the federal government to take care of this because they haven’t thus far.

“This is our resource. This is our precious gem, the waterways in the state. It’s our industry. It’s our capital,” Anderson said. “As a state we felt we’re going to take the burden on our own shoulders.”

The mussels, native to Europe’s Caspian Sea, were discovered in Lake Mead in Arizona and Nevada in 2007.

They wreaked havoc on the Great Lakes in the ’90s.

The cost in damage to fisheries, recreation, power plants and water supplies rose to billions of dollars because the critters multiply quickly and enshroud everything they come in contact with.

They clog pipes, destroy boat engines and when dead, their shells turn beaches into wastelands.

Since 2007, they have been found in Utah, California, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona.

“We don’t want to join their club,” Ferriter said. “Everybody I talk to in impacted states, they say, ‘Do everything you can,’ because once you get it you’re totally hosed basically because there are no control technologies available for natural systems, so in Idaho in particular we will be very limited in what we can do.”

For more information visit:  www.idahoag.us/Categories/Environment/InvasiveSpeciesCouncil/indexInvSpCouncil.php