For the first time this year, state officials found a live quagga mussel on a boat in the state of Idaho.
According to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, a mussel-infested boat was intercepted and impounded at the U.S. Highway 83 inspection station near the Idaho/Nevada border.
The boat’s owners spent the past three months at the quagga- and zebra-mussel infested Lake Havasu and were traveling to Alberta, Canada, when the boat was intercepted.
Currently, the watercraft was put under an ISDA hold order and is under quarantine at the Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Office. The boat will be held up to 30 days while it is being decontaminated. Decontamination will include a high-pressure, high-temperature wash of the exterior and trailer and a hot-water wash and flush of plumbing, bilge and live wells.
This is the third fouled vessel identified by ISDA’s Invasive Species Program this year. However, the other two boats were carrying dead mussels.
The inspection stations are designed to help prevent the spread of the invasive quagga mussel into Idaho irrigation reservoirs. Since 2009, ISDA inspections have identified nearly 165 fouled watercraft carrying zebra or quagga mussels, including 19 watercraft in 2016.
Quagga and zebra mussels have already wreaked havoc on waterways in the Great Lakes region and the Southwest. The invasive species latch onto boats and boat trailers, hitching a ride from one waterway to another.
Once established in a lake, river or stream, there is no known way to eradicate them, and they can have a devastating effect on pressurized irrigation systems that are provided water from the state’s numerous reservoirs.
According to a press release by Rep. Mat Erpelding, D-Boise, quagga mussel infestation could lead to nearly $100 million in lost economic activity and cause tens of millions of dollars in damage to our dams, irrigation pipes and other vital infrastructure.
So far, the Pacific Northwest has not had any quagga mussel infestations, and government agencies across the state are trying to keep it that way.
Earlier this month, the Idaho Legislature’s joint budget committee approved a $3.1 million increase in funding for the ISDA’s boat inspection program.
Erpelding sponsored a bill, HB 211, that includes an $8 increase in the out-of-state boat tag fee to fund up to three new boat checkpoints throughout the state. Under this legislation, which Erpelding expects to be enacted into law this week, the in-state fee remains unchanged at $22.
In Southeast Idaho, officials with the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District requested the county’s commissioners for a grant of $10,000 to help maintain inspection stations at various irrigation reservoirs in Franklin County.
The county provided funding last year for a similar request, and the commissioners voted to provide the requested funds again this year.
Many ISDA boat inspection stations have already opened for the season: U.S. Highway 93, Cotterell, Malad, Cedars (Interstate 90, westbound) and Rose Lake (State Highway 3, southbound).
The Bruneau and Marsing stations will open today. A total of 19 stations will be open for the 2017 season. Additionally, ISDA will be operating roving stations at locations around the state.
