Colorado lawmakers today decided to sponsor legislation that will help the state Division of Parks and Wildlife recharge the state inspection program designed to prevent invasive aquatic species in Colorado waterways.

The General Assembly’s interim Water Resources Review Committee voted today to carry the “Mussels-Free Colorado Act” in the next legislative session, which begins on January 10.

The program, authorized in 2008, has faced cutbacks in recent years just as mussels and their larvae are increasingly being found on boats entering Colorado reservoirs.

According to Doug Krieger, aquatic section manager for the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife (CPW), about a half million inspections are done every year at Colorado’s 80 reservoirs. The state was able to declare itself mussel-free in January, but that victory was short-lived, according to Krieger, when mussel larvae were detected in August at Green Mountain Reservoir in Summit County. Seven other Colorado reservoirs that previously detected mussel larvae have since been declared mussel-free, including Pueblo Reservoir, which had the worst problem in the state with mussel larvae between 2008 and 2011.

Unfortunately, the inspection program at Green Mountain has been cut back about 35 percent, Krieger told the committee, due to funding cuts. That means a shorter inspection season and shorter hours for those inspections. And that can lead to boaters who avoid inspections, whether putting in boats on private land around the reservoir or at the public ramps when inspections aren’t available.

At the same time, the discovery of mussel larvae at the reservoir means boats entering and exiting the reservoir are now subject to what Krieger called “high-risk” inspections and decontamination.

Green Mountain isn’t the only reservoir that has seen mussel activity; Krieger said there were seven other reservoirs this year with mussel detection.

Boats at state reservoirs are inspected and decontaminated, if necessary, at no charge, Krieger told Colorado Politics. Mussel larvae can attach itself to anything that gets wet, whether it’s the boat, anchors and anchor ropes, fishing gear, boat trailers or outboard or inboard engines. In one case, in southwestern Colorado, a boat came in heavily contaminated with mussels and their larvae, and it took weeks to completely decontaminate the boat, according to Doug Vilsack, the legislative liaison for the Department of Natural Resources. But because there’s no basis in law to recoup those costs, the boat owner was charged nothing for that decontamination.

The bill the committee decided to sponsor Tuesday would do two things: require boaters to obtain a stamp for their boats, and allow the division to recoup the costs of decontaminating boats that come in with mussels or their larvae. 

Boat stamps tied to mussel inspections are common in many states. At Lake Tahoe, for example, boats are inspected both entering and exiting the reservoir, and the charge ranges from $35 to $121, depending on boat length, per year. California charges between $8 and $16 for an annual inspection sticker.

Colorado’s new mussel stamp would cost residents $25 per year and non-residents $50 per year. That drew concerns from committee chair Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, a Sterling Republican, who questioned whether the higher cost would discourage tourism.

Vilsack told the committee that nonresidents don’t pay into the system and that boats coming in from out-of-state create the main problem with aquatic species.

Up until last year, most of the cost of the $4.5 million program was paid for with severance taxes, according to Vilsack. But much of that money went away when the state had to use those severance taxes to pay for a legal settlement with oil and gas giant BP, which successfully sued the state to obtain a refund on some of the severance tax dollars. The bill, should it pass, could generate up to $2.4 million per year. The program would still have a funding gap but Vilsack believes that gap would largely be covered by remaining severance tax funds.

Currently, the program has three full-time employees, down from its peak of seven when the program was authorized in 2008. In addition, the program brings in about 700 temporary inspectors every year, and with the funding cuts water providers and municipal governments were asked to pick up the slack.

About 50,000 boats per year must be decontaminated to ensure the microscopic larvae are killed off, and Vilsack said that will continue at no cost to boaters. It’s the boats where mussels are actually found and must be scraped off that will be charged for decontamination.

The biggest problems with nuisance species are from boats that have moored at Lake Powell in Arizona and at Lake Havasu, which sits on the Colorado River along the Arizona/California border. But mussels are also a problem in the Great Lake states and states in the Mississippi Valley. Kansas, Krieger told the committee, “has basically given up” on trying to stop the problem.

So far, Colorado has been lucky but that luck is running out. In 2017, inspectors intercepted 25 boats with adult mussels, a new record, up from 22 in 2016. The average prior to 2016 was about 12 per year, according to Krieger. All of the boats with the mussels had been in waters in other states.

“We’re now in containment mode, not preventive mode,” Krieger told Colorado Politics.

The time to spent money on mussels is upfront before the species becomes a problem in Colorado waterways, said Rep. Jeni Arndt, a Fort Collins Democrat and co-chair of the water committee.

If mussels become established in Colorado reservoirs, it’s not only a concern for the tourism industry; it’s also likely to become a problem for every Coloradan. According to the Utah Division of Wildlife, mussels can get into pipelines that carry water to water providers, and can even clog those pipelines. The cost, the division says, could run into the millions of dollars and translate into higher water bills for customers.  Once the mussels had infested the Great Lakes, the cost of cleanup just to the power industry over a six-year period was more than $3 billion.

Photo of zebra mussels courtesy of Lake Winnipeg Foundation