(Spirit Lake)– The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is reminding everyone to check for signs of aquatic invasive species as docks, hoists, and boats come out of the water this fall. Kim Bogenschutz, aquatic invasive species coordinator for the DNR, says anything suspicious should be reported…
“We want people to look on those things for zebra mussels, especially zebra mussels, but also maybe some plants that have gotten tangled up there on the cross bars and things like that. And if it’s a lake that you don’t know that has zebra mussels or something like curly leaf pondweed or eurasian water milfoil, to let your local DNR staff know or to let me know because we for sure want to get out there and check it out. It’s a really easy way for us to unfortunately find new infestations of these things.”
Bogenschutz says there is some good news to report on the zebra mussel front…
“We actually for zebra mussels have not found any new ones yet this year, especially up in your area. We did though, confirm, so last fall there were boats coming out of Saylorville Lake, here near Des Moines, that had zebra mussels on them and that was the first. We’ve done sampling and things in there but we hadn’t seen them and of course it’s hard when it’s a big lake like that, but there were multiple boats that had them on and so then this summer we were able to confirm with additional sampling that yes they are there, and then also down stream on the Des Moines River, in the Red Rock Reservoir as well we confirmed it.”
She reminds everyone it is illegal in Iowa to possess or transport aquatic invasive species or aquatic plants…
“Someone moving their hoist some where or you know, possibly wanting to sell it to someone else or things like that, but it does have to be cleaned off of everything, zebra mussels, plants and mud and everything before it gets transferred or sold or moved. The commercial folks up in the areas know that. They get some special permits from us but they don’t move them far and they can clean them off, but anyone else if it’s going to be moved it has to be completely cleaned. They can contact us and we can help them out as well.”
Bogenschutz hopes the fact that there were no new discoveries of zebra mussels in northwest Iowa this past summer means that more and more people are cleaning, draining and drying their boats and trailers.
