Milfoil group seeks more funding

SANDPOINT — A local clean water advocacy group is urging Bonner County to redirect some of the funding it receives for Eurasian milfoil herbicide treatments to a weevil program set to launch on the Pend Oreille this summer.

Pend Oreille Waterkeeper said Idaho State Department of Agriculture milfoil-control funding won’t last forever and is encouraging county commissioners to embrace long-term control methods which are environmentally sustainable.

“Right now the Bonner County commission has the opportunity to set itself up to locally control and manage Eurasian milfoil,” Pend Oreille Waterkeeper’s Jennifer Ekstrom told commissioners earlier this week.

Partners for Milfoil Control, of which Waterkeeper is a part, announced last month it had raised more than $175,000 to implement a control and research project involving the weevils, which eat milfoil.

Ekstrom maintains ISDA has modified grant funding language to include control methods, not just eradication measures. But many believe eradication is a pipe dream, even with the use of herbicides.

Ekstrom underscored the point by noting that milfoil has grown back despite three years of herbicide treatments.

“Nothing magical is going to happen due to a fourth year of herbicides,” she said.

But county officials do not agree that ISDA will approve the county’s request to shift herbicide funding to weevils.

“My understanding is that we can’t do it,” county Noxious Weed Director Leslie Marshall said after the meeting. “The state is still considering them something they’re not willing to finance.”

Ekstrom also asked commissioners to invest in bottom barriers to suffocate milfoil. The county is currently renting the panels and contracts with certified divers to manage them.

Although Marshall suspects it would be too expensive to purchase finished bottom barriers, there might be another option.

“There’s nothing to say we can’t build these ourselves,” Marshall said.

Commissioners Joe Young and Cornel Rasor said the would look into the possibility of utilizing sheriff’s divers to manage the bottom barriers.