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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vollmer" data-source="post: 164770" data-attributes="member: 8014">[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Neill Goltz was riding a bicycle near the headwaters of the Missouri River last week when he stopped to watch two men pull a motor boat out of the water at a takeout along Trident Road.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Signs posted near the takeout warned against spreading a small non-native shellfish, known as zebra and quagga mussels, and instructed water users to clean, drain and dry their equipment.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Goltz, himself a fisherman, said the two men did no such thing. They loaded up and drove off. He’s watched the same mussels invade waters in Minnesota, and thinks there should have been spray equipment at the boat launch for the men to use.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]It might not matter. State officials detected mussel larvae 22 miles downriver, at the York’s Island Fishing Access Site near Townsend. The discovery has some in Montana concerned the state is on the brink of an ecological crisis with economic impacts.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“Let’s say he went up to the tip of the reservoir and now he’s coming back and taking out where it’s clean of zebras or maybe it isn’t, but if he’s got water in his well, how long does it last, and is his next trip up Hyalite Canyon?” Goltz asked.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The European mussels were first detected in the Great Lakes in the 1980s. They’ve spread west, and have finally reached Montana. A single mussel can produce millions of eggs. They’re nearly impossible to eradicate. And when they reproduce in mass they can damage water systems and power plants. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]On Wednesday, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock created a “rapid response team” staffed by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks to address their reach into Montana.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The order he signed responded to tests published on Nov. 8, which showed baby mussels, called veligers, present in the Tiber Reservoir north of Great Falls. More veligers have been detected since, but they’re still looking for colonies of striped adult mussels. The assumption is that it’s only a matter of time and testing.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot]+1  A graphic showing the spread of zebra mussels across the United States from 1986 to 2016. USGS graphic[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“The rapid response team is expediting the processing of samples taken from water bodies this summer,” said FWP’s Greg Lemon. “We’re sending some samples to a lab in Colorado that’s going to help us. The expectation is to have all of our water samples taken from the routine monitoring done in the next two weeks.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]FWP took more than 500 water samples from all over the state this year. The sample from Hyalite Reservoir, a major source of water for Bozeman, taken on June 7 tested negative for mussel veligers. And Lemon said they’ll soon have results from the Missouri, Gallatin, Madison, Jefferson, and Yellowstone rivers, Ennis Lake, Three Forks ponds, and Clark Canyon Reservoir.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]They also imposed a ban on removing boats and docks from Tiber and Canyon Ferry until they’re iced over. And they’re conducting more detailed sampling on those waters, which could help determine the presence of adult mussels.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Trout Unlimited’s executive director, Bruce Farling, said he’s concerned and thinks this could be a major environmental issue for Montana’s trout.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“I’m more concerned about this,” Farling said in comparison to whirling disease. “We’ve seen how sweeping the effects of these invasive mussels can be in other places.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot]Follow the Chronicle on Facebook and join the most active news conversation in Bozeman.[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Rivers and streams might be OK, but Farling said trout live in reservoirs and lakes, too.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Amy Benson is the U.S. Geological Survey’s fishery biologist who tracks the foreign mussel infestation. On Friday, she said that the mussel’s prefer reservoirs and lakes, and, “That might be Montana’s saving grace.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“I’m hoping that the zebra or quagga mussels that are there won’t really find suitable habitat. They prefer slower-moving waters, reservoirs and big rivers with a lot of slack water, they can’t take a lot of scouring. They’re not doing well in the lower Colorado River.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The mussel veligers are small and delicate and can’t attach to objects in running water, she said. Benson added that there might be something about the intermountain west’s reservoir’s at high altitude, maybe the chemistry, that the mussels don’t like. “They were found in half a dozen reservoirs in Colorado and none have been found since, that’s been five years ago and they’re monitoring for them.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]But no one thinks that Montana should wait and see. Gov. Steve Bullock’s budget for the next two years includes an annual $1.1 million budget for boat check stations.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]In 2015, $4 million in federal funding was included in the Water Resources Development Act to match state spending on boat inspections in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. But the states never got the money from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]State Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, has been working with Montana’s congressional delegation to make amendments to ensure the money gets freed up and to add another $1 million for testing. If it passes, Cuffe said, there should be $9 million for distribution among Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]“It’s about time we treated this like a full-blown emergency,” Cuffe said Friday.[/FONT][/FONT]</blockquote>

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