Quagga solution?

[dubob]

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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]Generally speaking, most of the reservoirs of any size in Utah were built by some Federal government agency; Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, etc. Those agencies actually ‘own’ those reservoirs. And in almost every case, the reservoirs were built to supply water to some user; agricultural users for growing things and residential users for drinking and household stuff. These uses are controlled by some local, state level agency under contract to the ‘owner.’ Where appropriate, recreational use, such as boating, swimming, and fishing, is planned for and managed by another state agency like the Park Service.[/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]However, I know of no Utah reservoir that puts recreational use as the number one purpose ahead of the agricultural/residential use of the stored water. The agricultural/residential use will always be the prime consideration for management of the water and recreation will always be secondary to that use. They are never on an equal footing to my knowledge.[/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]If any recreational use ever negatively impacts agricultural/residential use of a reservoir’s water, then the recreational use will be curtailed or eliminated. An example of this is the total ban on OHV use on the ice of some reservoirs during ice fishing season. It is not being aggressively enforced, but there are some reservoirs that legally don’t allow OHV use on the ice.[/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]I’m hopeful that science will ultimately give us a solution to the mussel problem we are now facing in Utah, because the current Utah honor system of declaring watercraft cleaned by owners is a joke. The only way you can come anywhere close to making a successful program would be to require mandatory cleaning of EVERY watercraft prior to entering EVERY body of water in Utah. Anybody ever see that happening?[/#800000][/font]
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[font "Comic Sans MS"][#800000]The mussel threat is real. They are going to eventually show up in every Utah water body; it’s just a matter of time. Utah’s stupid honor system of declared boat cleaning will NOT prevent it from happening. And I will not be surprised when water management agencies finally decide that the financial risk to their end users is too great for them to continue to allow recreational use of the water source. Anybody who thinks that is not a possibility is not fully in touch with reality.[/#800000][/font]
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