At the end of January, the Cook County Soil and Water District (SWCD) released a report summarizing the work of its Aquatic Invasive Species Prevention Aid Program during the past year. This program, which focuses on organisms not native to our water system, is crucial to our community’s efforts to protect our local waters.
For the last decade, the Minnesota DNR has funded AIS prevention and education efforts with annual $10 million grants appropriated by the legislature every two years. DNR allocates those funds to counties based on the number of boat launching sites in each county. The SWCD receives $200,000 as its grant.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has proposed a 50% cut to the DNR AIS budget in his proposed budget for fiscal year 26/27, effectively reducing SWCDs’ grants by half. Although the budgeting process is still in its early stages, the public must know this possibility.
For her part, Amanda Weberg, the SWCD AIS Program Supervisor, has not lost any sleep over the budget gyrations just yet. “There is uncertainty on when any of those will start,” she said.
The local AIS program, which is solely reliant on the DNR grant to fund its efforts, used less than the full amount of the DNR grant in 2024, totaling $188,477. This funding was used for a range of activities, including watercraft inspections, public education campaigns, and support for local initiatives aimed at limiting the spread of AIS.
Weberg, a part-time employee at SWCD, devotes 100% of her work time to AIS education and prevention.
For the second year in a row, Weberg employed four DNR-trained Level 1 Watercraft Inspectors who worked at 24 access points on 22 bodies of water. Those inspectors reflect a little over a third of annual expenditures.
Level 1 inspections include a visual and tactile inspection of watercraft, from paddle boards and kayaks to fishing boats and pontoon boats set to enter or leave a body of water to determine if AIS are present. In addition, the Level 1 inspector ensures that watercraft owners understand the importance of draining, drying, and cleaning any equipment and makes them aware that state law requires that bilge plugs be removed whenever the boat is in transit on public roads to ensure that water from one lake is not transported to the next launch point.
From June through September 2024, four level-one inspectors devoted 1,996 hours to watercraft inspections, about the same as the previous year. However, almost 1,900 inspections were performed, compared to 1,127 in 2023. These inspections were, by far, the largest number in the ten years the program has operated here.
It’s a testament to the program’s effectiveness that nearly all the watercraft inspected complied with AIS mitigation protocols.
Weberg has become the leading expert on Minnesota’s rusty crayfish, Faxonius rusticus. This species is native to the Ohio River Valley and debuted in northern lakes almost twenty years ago. It was possibly brought to the area as bait or released by aquarium owners in a local water body. A regulated invasive species in Minnesota, it is most prevalent in the northeastern part of the state.
Weberg has assisted Yusef Orest of Grand Marais, who set up Crawdaddies MN, a commercial harvester of the invasive crayfish, and supported lake property owner associations in their work to limit the spread.
Additional information about the AIS prevention aid program can be found on the SWCD section of the Cook County website, www.co.cook.mn.us.
