Friday, March 27, 2020
CapitalPress.com
7
Watercraft quagga mussel check points gear up for summer
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
The number of watercraft
inspected at Northwest inva-
sive-species check stations last
year increased by 31% in Wash-
ington and 7% in Idaho.
The Oregon total also would
have climbed had a key roadside
station found enough employees
to stay open longer each day, an
official said.
More boat checks are cred-
ited with continued success in
keeping Northwest waters free of
quagga and zebra mussels, which
clog and damage irrigation pipes
and pumps in other states.
Longer operating hours and
making sure watercraft own-
ers don’t bypass inspection sta-
tions are credited with keeping
the mussel out of the region riv-
ers and lakes.
Many stations are up and run-
ning — some are gearing up as
employees are trained and oth-
ers are open year-round — well
ahead of the summer peak in
demand.
Inspectors look for mussels,
which can harm lakes and rivers
as well as municipal and irriga-
tion equipment. Crews also find
other invasive species, including
snails and plants.
ISDA
The Pacific Northwest remains free of quagga, zebra mussels. Traf-
fic outlook is uncertain in light of concerns about COVID-19, larger
economy.
“We continue to inspect more
and more watercraft,” said Nic
Zurfluh, invasive species sec-
tion manager at the Idaho State
Department of Agriculture.
Idaho fields 20 roadside sta-
tions and six roving crews. Some
stations stayed open longer each
day in 2019, and police stopped
more watercraft owners who ini-
tially drove by a station, he said.
“Every boat check station
in Idaho had some sort of law
enforcement support last year for
boater compliance, basically get-
ting them to stop,” Zurfluh said.
They inspected recreational
watercraft and heavy equipment
that works in rivers and lakes.
While it remains to be seen if
this changes based on concerns
about COVID-19 and the econ-
omy, inspection stations aren’t
focused solely on the total num-
ber of inspections, Zurfluh said.
“Our goal is not just to inspect
more, but to inspect those with
the highest risk,” he said.
On Feb. 27, a inspectors along
Interstate 15 in Malad, Idaho,
found a bilge pump with mus-
sels in it. They were ultimately
determined to be biologically
non-viable and thus not a risk.
The boat had come from Lake
Havasu, Ariz., and was destined
for Alberta, Canada.
Zurfluh said the border sta-
tions first to receive watercraft
from known mussel-hosting
areas, such as the Lower Colo-
rado River system or the Great
Lakes, are critical to keeping
mussels out of Idaho and the rest
of the Columbia Basin.
Oregon opened its inspection
stations in 2010, a year after Ida-
ho’s program began. Inland sta-
tions remain critical to keeping
mussels out of the larger region,
said Rick Boatner, invasive spe-
cies wildlife integrity supervisor
at the state Department of Fish
and Wildlife.
“We’re still mussel-free in the
Northwest, so stations are hav-
ing a good impact there,” he said.
“All of the stations that have sta-
tions help us. Redundancy is
important because the mussels
are so small and they get missed.”
Coordination among officials
in the West and in western Cana-
dian provinces has also advanced,
Zurfluh said. They promptly
share information about move-
ment of watercraft that had mus-
sels or originated from high-risk
areas.
“Prevention is more cost-ef-
fective than containment or erad-
ication,” he said.
In Washington, about one-
third of watercraft inspected in
2019 came from known mus-
sel-infested waters in other
states, said Rachel Blomker of
the Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
Washington’s two stations, on
I-90 at the Idaho border and I-82
near the Oregon border, are open.
Blomker said that combined, the
stations last year inspected more
than 32,000 watercraft, detecting
18 with mussels.
Oregon stations at Uma-
tilla, Ontario, Lakeview, Klam-
ath Falls, Ashland and Brook-
ings in 2018 inspected 28,190
watercraft.
Boatner said the 2019 total
was lower, but would have been
around 30,000 if enough employ-
ees were available for the Uma-
tilla station, which was open
part-time. The Ontario and Ash-
land stations are open all year.
Others open on May 1.
Idaho stations, Zurfluh said,
inspected 110,486 watercraft in
2018 and 118,350 last year. Fifty
boats had mussels in 2018 com-
pared to 45 last year.
Water outlook still iffy in central Idaho basins
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Low snowpack in Ida-
ho’s central mountains has
concerned hydrologists and
irrigators since just after the
start of the year.
Recent snowpack totals
lag long-term averages by
30 percentage points or
more.
Carl Pendleton, a farmer
and rancher who chairs the
Big Wood Canal Co. board,
said persisting dry con-
ditions could reduce total
yields and pressure cattle on
drier rangeland.
Hay growers in the area
can get 3 to 5 cuttings in the
typical year, he said. This
year, they could end up with
2 or 3 cuttings if conditions
stay dry.
Corn yields would be
reduced if growers plant
shorter-maturing varieties
that have less mass at har-
vest, Pendleton said. Cattle
on irrigated pasture should
benefit to an extent from a
grass crop that entered 2020
in good shape.
“Our snowpack right
now is from big southern
storms in December-Jan-
uary,” he said. Snowpack
then dropped quickly in
relation to long-term aver-
ages, as February and early
March stayed dry. Precipi-
tation over the March 14-15
weekend helped a bit, bring-
ing wet snow to mountains
and rain to lower areas.
About one-third of Big
Wood Canal Co.’s water
supply comes from Magic
Reservoir. The rest is from
Milner-Gooding Canal on
the Snake River.
The company’s irriga-
tion season could last to
about Sept. 1, assuming a
May 1 start and the current
snowpack supplying about
a month’s worth of water,
Pendleton said March 18.
That outlook reflects that
the reservoir saw good car-
ryover storage — water
remaining following irriga-
tion season — in each of the
last three years.
Magic Reservoir can hold
191,500 acre-feet of water.
If current conditions hold,
it would drop to 4,500 acre-
feet by the end of the season,
he said. At that level, deliv-
eries can no longer be made
equitably and the fishery
supported.
“We may not see the res-
ervoir completely fill to the
point that we need to draft,”
matching outflow releases to
inflows, Pendleton said. “Our
peak is normally in June. It
has been a warmer year.”
Pat Purdy of Picabo Live-
stock Co. grows malt bar-
ley, mustard seed and alfalfa
hay. He said he’s fortunate
that his fields at highest risk
of water shortage later this
year already are in mustard
and barley rather than alfalfa,
which uses more water.
“We have been work-
ing in the last few years to
move to a no-till produc-
tion system and utilize a net-
work of moisture sensors, all
with the goal of making the
system more resilient to cli-
mate stress,” he said. “As the
year unfolds, we may have
to make tougher decisions.
We may have to shut systems
down depending on how
events unfold.”
USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service, which
in a March 1 report said
more precipitation would be
needed to avoid water short-
ages, pegged snowpack as of
March 18 at 70% of normal
in the Big Wood and Big
Lost river basins, and 68%
in the Little Wood River
Basin. At the same time,
many southern Idaho basins
had totals approaching 90%
BLM
Magic Reservoir on the Big Wood River in Idaho.
or 100%, or more.
Recent
precipitation
boosted totals by 11 percent-
age points in Little Wood, 8
percentage points in Big Lost
and 3 in Big Wood compared
to March 9.
January’s active weather
patterns flowed from the west
or northwest. Troy Lindquist,
a senior hydrologist with the
National Weather Service in
Boise, said that because of
mountain ranges and topog-
raphy, these types of storms
typically are drier by the time
they come east and south into
Wood and Big Lost basins.
However, “in the past,
they have had some very
good March precipitation,”
he said. “So far this month,
the storm track is a little more
favorable.”
Pendleton said most
snowpack in the area’s
basins comes from “Pineap-
ple Express” storms coming
from the south.
“Our basin is relatively
small,” he said. “We can get
a couple of big storms out of
the south and they will fill
our basin.”
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