Valerie G. Barnes Connell Jordan
Northern Advocate
Clean Drain Dry is a preventative process recreational boat users are asked to diligently perform when moving their boats between waterbodies, lakes, rivers to prevent infestation of Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS), particularly Zebra and Quagga Mussels, entering Prince Albert National Park and Saskatchewan waterways, lakes and rivers.
AIS are ‘typically extremely effective competitors to Saskatchewan native species. This can result in the loss of that native species by cascading effect on entire food chains.
“The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, one of the big bodies .. when (they) first started seeing these things, rated IAS the second biggest threats to biodiversity worldwide, so it’s certainly something that we’re concerned about in Prince Albert National Park,” Tom Perry, Ecological Team Leader for Prince Albert National Park, said in an interview with the Northern Advocate.
Parks Canada is strongly advocating for boaters to practice the Clean Drain Dry technique with their boats.
Clean Drain Dry is one of a number of techniques being used as a preventative measure to keep AIS out of the Park’s waterways. Others include environmental DNA testing, which is testing for DNA of Zebra Mussels or other AIS floating I the water systems.
“Fortunately, we have not found any evidence of zebra mussels or other AIS,” Perry said.
Other techniques include doing a visual inspection survey, which is ”looking on beaches or places that these things like to grow or live,” and Veliger Sampling. Veligers, are baby Zebra Mussels.
“We’re just using a plankton net that we put out in the water and then look at under a microscope looking for evidence of these veligers that might be free floating in the water,” he said.
Jim Kerby, chair of the Waskesiu Community Council, is also concerned about the spread of AIS.
The Community Council is an elected body of seven councillors in the Waskesiu townsite, that is an advisory to Parks Canada for the betterment of the Waskesiu community.
Kerby attended a gathering for Media with Parks Canada representatives to raise awareness regarding AIS, and the Clean Drain Dry process.
“It’s incredibly important that we drastically increase awareness of this issue. Firs, people have to understand that it’s an issue that the failure to deal with, this can have devastating consequences,” Kerby said in an interview with the Northern Advocate.
People need to understand the issue and the drastic affects AIS can have on the environment, both Kerby and Perry said.
“The consequences are so severe for failing to deal with this. If you can beat it up front by not letting AIS into our lakes and waterways, you’re so much better off than trying to deal with it afterwards. In the present there is no solution easily available,” Kerby added.
“The expression I’ve been using lately is that people often say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure . In this case an ounce of prevention is probably worth five thousand pounds of cure.”
Speaking of the townsite infrastructure, Kerby said, for example, AIS latch onto infrastructure in the water, such as pipes, and will completely clog them until they need replacing. They just keep on so it would mean continued replacing of the pipes, as Zebra Mussels are prolific multipliers.
These mussels spread rapidly in water.
“Many of these things that end up dying and washing on shore. They’re sharp for people to step on and they smell,” Kerby said, adding the economics and infrastructure damage would hurt businesses and fewer people would be interested in visiting the lake.
Paige Gilchrist is the Aquatic Invasive Species Ecologist for the Province of Saskatchewan.
“They (AIS) haven’t been found in Saskatchewan to date … they have been found in a lot of nearby provinces and the States, like Manitoba, Ontario and North and South Dakota. So, that’s where a lot of our effort is put in ..; to prevent zebra and quagga mussels from getting in here,” she said in an interview with the Northern Advocate.
Saskatchewan is running water crop inspections in the summer and fall season. They have different types of stations located along highways, particularly Highway No. 1 and No. 16 on the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and the United States borders.
“These stations are open on a daily basis for the most part and every vehicle transporting watercraft would have to stop and go in for their mandatory inspection. Our watercraft inspectors there would be doing inspections to make sure that loads are Clean Drain Dry, check them for AIS and sometimes we’re finding zebra mussels on the boats coming through, so if they find anything concerning, or if the boat isn’t Clean Drain Dry, they will do a decontamination, which is a procedure where we use hot water, and the hot water is what effectively kills any of the AIS that we’re concerned about.”
They also have roving Inspection Stations, and their “primary focus is on responding to traffic coming through the international border.”
They work with the Canadian Border Services to meet travellers before they enter the province. Most often they are travellers in the province to go fishing.
“Most of the time they are going to waterbodies in the north and some of our popular fishing destinations, so we’re able to do many inspections for travellers coming from the States as well,” she said.
Saskatchewan began inspections in 2015 and have increased the program yearly. The program was moved to the Fish and Wildlife Brane in 2018, and “then that’s kind of where it’s been expanding slowing every year … now for the past three years we’ve had 11 seasonal staff every year,” Gilchrist said.
Riding Mountain National Park ecologists found DNA of zebra mussels in a water sample in the summer of 2022, Damoan Hall, spokesperson for the Riding Mountain National Park, said in an interview with the Northern Advocate.
The discovery prompted new regulations for boat use on Clear Lake in 2023.
“Basically, a boat owner needed to attach that their vessel had not been in any lake. They would have a tag affixed to them that they was basically was our assurance that vessel hat not been in any other body of water.”
At the end of the summer of 2023 water samples were collected from “multiple locations on Clear Lake. We got tests back in early November indicating we still and presence of AIS DNA in the Boat Cove area,” Hall said, and that led to a visual search of the area and the discovery, in early November, of clump of zebra mussels attached to an item that “was just free floating in the lake.”
That led to a change – this year there is no access to Clear Lake for either motorized or human-powered vessels and that has been done in an attempt to give the scientists the best opportunity to locate a colony, if you will, for establishing zebra mussels.”
They went on collecting and testing water samples regularly. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has done the environmental testing particularly veliger testing, and in July found DNA for zebra mussels was still found in Boat Cove, the main boat launch area for Wasagamming and July 17 “a zebra mussel was found in the Boat Cove area” attached to a rock.
They are now bringing in a two-millimetre containment curtain which they will place around the area where the zebra mussel was found.
”That work is being done in preparation for a potential application of potash to try to eradicate this invasive species,” Hall said.
“Parks Canada takes this situation very seriously. We know that zebra mussels present a real threat to the ecological integrity both of the lake and downstream and nobody want to see any mussels. We’re doing what we can to prevent that from happening, but there are no guarantees with our approach either,” he said.
Saskatchewan watercraft users are asked to Clean Drain Dry their watercraft, which includes motorboats, kayaks, canoes, anything that goes into the water.
It involves scrubbing, or washing or vacuuming your boat off, or just generally cleaning your boat off so it doesn’t have any of these AIS. The species that are trying to hitchhike on it” Perry said.
The process should also always involve “pulling the drain plug on your boat … if it has an external ballast tank, pull that plus so it drains out all the water from the watercraft. These AIS that we’re really talking about, concerned about, they need water to live and some of them can live out of water for a period of time, but they need water so we drain out all of the water from our watercraft, you know, that’s to remove that [water] from them and they should die,” he said.
