Idaho Department of Agriculture details Quagga fight to JFAC
Governor proposed $6 Million to ISDA for continued Quagga budget.
BOISE, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) —While we haven’t heard much about the Quagga mussel due to the colder temperatures the Idaho State Department of Agriculture is still hard at work now and planning for the future.
Governor Brad Little proposed that over $6 Million go to the department for fiscal year 2025, to continue the fight against the Quagga.
ISDA Director Chanel Tewalt was at the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee to answer questions about her department’s budget.
She said the new money would go to fund two new full-time positions, create 18 temporary positions, double water monitoring and sampling, and increase the number of decontamination stations know as hot washes from the current one at Centennial Park to three statewide.
The one Centennial Park will remain, another mid Snake River would be added and one yet to be determined location.
“We know without question where one of those stations has to be at Centennial Park at the mid Snake. Now that we have found Quagga mussels in the mid Snake, we will have a really robust presence on the river. We want to get the river back open up for folks who love it and get the back one the water. That means we’re going to have to clean every single boat, raft, kayak that comes off that water. So, we literally have folks stationed at the river right now doing that. We never have stations open at this time in the winter, but we do now,” said Director Tewalt.
Director Tewalt rolled out an aggressive plan to fight the Quagga back in September. While sampling looked good, it’s still too soon to tell if the invasive species is gone, so, the department must continue to be aggressive in its fight.
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