My new job, Im the enemy and I like it

I will be inspecting your vessel all summer at Chatfield State Park. Im now an ANS inspector. Im excited.

Where is that and what is that? As here I am in Arizona and we don't have this...

ANuS inspector? sounds awesome

Bend over LOL.

Originally Posted by 882001

ANuS inspector? sounds awesome

I tried, but I couldnt find that clip from beavis and butt head do america with the cavity search haha....itd fit in perfectly here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqolwZoj8RA

if there is no aquatic nuisance species inspectiors in az, there wont be rec. boating for long....

Why would you like being in an adversarial position with boaters? I think your job would be much more enjoyable if you take the attitude that we are all interested in protecting the lakes...some of us just need education as to why and how. I would not look forward to your job for the occasional boater who is a turd and refuses to understand the impact of some of these problems.

And actually...there are no aquatic nuisance inspections at Lake Mead and the recreational boating is just fine (we will spend untold millions cleaning up mussels). Not a smart trade, but the recreational boating survives just fine.

Lake powell is apparently gona start doing mandatory searches this year for all... the on your honor system i guess wasn't working... Ha, who would have thought

im fearing the potential waits (beyond the usual 1-2 questions and the muscle free paper on the dash) this year. thanks all you liars out there...

edit: read with a dash of sarcasm

if there is no aquatic nuisance species inspectiors in az, there wont be rec. boating for long....

Fish and game handle this in AZ and CA. Sucks because when I leave the river, I actually wash all my anchors and lines, and I still got popped for having a dead quagga muscle in my anchor. I didn't mind the boat being out of use for two weeks, but the fact that the fish and game dude didn't even come out to inspect the boat. He said wait two weeks, and I could cut the tags myself and mail them in. I was honest and waited, but like jeremy said, the honor system doesn't work. And because of a fish and game agent that didn't want to come check the tags, how many people went out by lying to him.

My reasons for doing this IS to help wakeboarding.

There is no reason that ANS isnpections are bad. I used to think cops were bad, but then again, I used to drive drunk, and with canabis. ANS is not here to mess up your day. True, some inspectors have NO CLUE AND SHOULD BE FIRED, but if we dont deal with this now, TAXES WILL GO UP to deal with these little bastards. And we all know how wakeworld feels about taxes

Originally Posted by epic1

if there is no aquatic nuisance species inspectiors in az, there wont be rec. boating for long....

I guess that explains why saguaro lake smells and tastes funny

Thank you Mr Ben Dover for the ANuS inspection sounds like a SHI*Y job. Good luck with that

California has no one regulatory agency running there inspection programs. In Santa Clara County its a private firm working under the direction of the water district and every boat is inspected. Naciemento its a volunteer force with random inspections at public launch ramps and no inspections at private ramps.

There are many lakes where no inspections take place such as Lake Mean because the lakes are already contaminated with Quagge and Zebra Mussels. I can undserstand and appreciatte the inspection process as we want to protect our water ways, however, it is inevitable they will all become contaminated eventually. With human inspectors there will always be a chance of error, people letting buddys slide, also birds and migrating fish can carry the Mussels from one lake to another. All we can do is slow the spread.

Enjoy your new job Chris!

P.S. Isn't Powell already infected? I believe they've already had positive reports for mussels from the lake?

Hey Chris, Chatfield State Park in Colorado? Hopefully so, they need some competent people down there! A few years ago they(Chatfield peeps) melted the pumps on my buddies '07 Epic because they said that he needed to be decontaminated even though the boat was dry and was stored all winter long. The state's insurance wound up paying for the damage but it was still a hassle for him.

Good luck in your new job and hopefully you can help the system out! The inspectors at Horsetooth are pretty decent and it really flows smoothly as long as you are an educated boater, follow their rules/lead and you will be done in 3-5 minutes.

Originally Posted by epic1

I will be inspecting your vessel all summer at Chatfield State Park. Im now an ANS inspector. Im excited.

I think having a fellow wakeboarder as an inspector is a good thing. You understand how things work with wakeboard boats. The geriatric morons that the Colorado State Parks hire to do this job never cease to amaze me. There have been times when I get a bow-hook seal put on my boat to show I have left the lake after being deemed mussel free. When I come back the next time, I have gotten the 3rd degree even with the seal showing that I haven't been to another infected lake! Not to mention the guy climbed all through my boat with God knows what on the bottom of his shoe. It took acetone and a LOT of elbow grease to get whatever it was off of the seats and carpet. They aren't allowed to get in without taking off their shoes now.
I wish there were more people like you working down here at Navajo State Park.

Originally Posted by wakerider111

Lake powell is apparently gona start doing mandatory searches this year for all... the on your honor system i guess wasn't working... Ha, who would have thought

im fearing the potential waits (beyond the usual 1-2 questions and the muscle free paper on the dash) this year. thanks all you liars out there...

edit: read with a dash of sarcasm

I had my boat inspected at Halls Crossing last year. They did the whole hot water flush thing for my ballast. I thought they had already started doing the mandatory inspections. Sure it is a pain in the butt, but in the end it is worth it to have waters that are free of invasive species.

Hopefully the other lakes around colorado catch up with Standley and the state can put together some sort of tagging system where I can actually take my boat elsewhere and not have to put it in quarantine for 2 weeks each time I do.

Catch up with Standley??? You mean Standley starts honoring the state tagging system. Heck, Larimer County and the State parks don't even honor each other. You can literally take your boat to Carter/Horsetooth and get tagged and then drive to Boyd Lake (State Park) and they won't honor Larimer County tags. Larimer has never given me problems with the state tag though, they usually just take my paperwork and cut the tag and send me on my way whereas Boyd does a full inspection. Stupid.

This is one of the many reasons I finally joined a private lake...no more hassle.

To be honest, though I hate it, Standley is far further along in their tagging system than the rest of the state. Their inspection is 10 times more thurough than the rest of the state and it translates to other lakes respecting the tag. In fact last year when we went to powell we were told the only tag from colorado that wouldn't need to go through their inspectionprocess was a standley tag. If all the lakes had the more intense inspection procedures then they would all respect it.

Glad I don't have to deal with this nonsense in NJ. It would drive me nuts!

When I go to Maine each summer they sometimes have ramp inspectors at the lake I stay on but they never even inspect my boat. They just have a quick look that no invasive plants are hanging off the boat or trailer (that's their big problem up there) and note the last body of water the boat was in. My take is up there it seems more about education and awareness along with the honor system. It doesn't take much to hose down your boat and keep it cleaned up and generally unpleasant for invasive species. I'd imagine most of us here keep our boats pretty clean anyway.

They give me crap every year about not having an invasive waterlife permit sticker on the boat (permit to use freshwater lakes in Maine) but I usually arrive on a Sunday when the town office is closed and can't get one there. They always let me launch though and I just drive the boat down to the one marina on the lake that sells the stickers. I don't mind paying the $10 or $20 or whatever it is for a permit even if I only use the lake for two weeks out of the year. There's never rangers or police on our lake so it's essentially honor system. As long as they don't start harassing me and I have to go all mission impossible to use the ramp then I have no complaints.

Honestly, no offense Chris, but most of the inspection processes in colorado are a joke.

What does Standley do differently?

They inspect the boat, then they spray it down and flush the ballast with hot water, then they red tag it for anywhere from 11-15 days, depending on what time of year, in which it has to sit and can't be put on the water. Once the quaranitine period is over then it can be pujt back on the lake, then when you take the boat off they green tag it. As long as you have an intact green tag they just cut it off each time and add another one. If the tag is removed you have to go through the whole quarantine process again.

Glad I don't belong to Standley! Can't take the boat for basically 2 weeks if you've been in another one? Pfft, Colorado already has a short enough season, no sense in shortening any further. What you describe to me actually makes me think that they don't trust their own system. If the hot water isn't enough to decontaminate, then why use it? I now see why the Tige reunion was so much smaller the past year, none of the owners wanted to lose 2 weeks of prime season as a penalty for going to Wyoming for 1 weekend.

It does suck, but if all of colorado did it then there wouldn't be any down time between lakes, and the everyone would accept it. Yes it's over kill, but it's the most sure method of making sure that you don't infect the lake. The inspector at powell said they were looking into a similar system, they just have to figure out the logistics, due tot he fact that people come from far away.

I don't get the whole 2 week quarantine thing at Standley?? Hot water (over 140 deg or whatever) is supposed to kill the zebra mussels within a minute!
*****, the first and only time I've had to get the full ballast tank decon was at Rifle Gap, CO.
1st time out in the spring, barney and his troops didn't even have the Hotsy set up. Then the guy preoceeded to soak/scald himself by trying to run 140deg water at 4000psi thru a fake a lake!!!!

FInally gave up and let me on the lake after his hands and arms were blistered!
BTW, Rifle Gap has a "5 gallon rule" I think is what they call it. Basically, if the dock cop is smart enough to figure out your boat has ballast, he asks how many bags? When you say it has hard tanks and.....no he can't see them, he asks how many tanks. If you say "2" then you're good to go because they assume each tank is holding 2 gal of leftover potentially contaminated water. If you say "3", you get de-conned because you must have 6 gallons of bad water.

It's a good policy in general to keep invasive species down and I support it to the extent that I don't want to see our waters go dead, but suffice it to say, when asked how many ballast tanks I have, I say "2" and I take care of the Mussel problem myself on my boat.

I think there needs to be a standardized guideline system that all states follow. If not, there should be reciprocity for the state's system in each other state. Some of us like to out of state lakes from time to time.

Here is what really gets me....My home lake is Navajo Reservoir. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, it is a fairly large lake (15,000 acres) Part of it is in Colorado, and the majority of it stretched across the state line into New Mexico. There are two marinas, one in Arboles, CO, and one at Navajo Dam, NM. Now, if you go to Arboles to launch, you must go through the state park's mussel inspection. Not a real big deal...it only takes a few minutes. Now, if you go to the New Mexico side and launch at Navajo Dam, you don't have to get inspected. Just show up and launch your boat no questions asked. It seems like a waste of Colorado taxpayer's dollars to employ attendants to conduct inspections, when 20 miles down the lake in New Mexico, they aren't doing anything. What, do they think there is some invisible barrier at the state line that mussels won't cross????? It is basically the same travel wise for me to launch at either marina, but I mostly choose Arboles since it is less crowded and get to see my tax dollars at "work".

yeah...they freak when I tell them that I have two hard tanks that they can't see because I would have to tear the whole end of the interior out to get to them!

That's crazy at Navajo, makes no sense! I guess I am lucky that all of my ballast is in the form of bags that I can just lay out for them to inspect. I always disconnect the bags from the pumps and drain them over the side of the boat so I guess I am trying to do my part...I definitely want to continue the joy of boating here so I guess I will do whatever I need to.

Originally Posted by Thrall

I don't get the whole 2 week quarantine thing at Standley?? Hot water (over 140 deg or whatever) is supposed to kill the zebra mussels within a minute!
*****, the first and only time I've had to get the full ballast tank decon was at Rifle Gap, CO.
1st time out in the spring, barney and his troops didn't even have the Hotsy set up. Then the guy preoceeded to soak/scald himself by trying to run 140deg water at 4000psi thru a fake a lake!!!!

FInally gave up and let me on the lake after his hands and arms were blistered!
BTW, Rifle Gap has a "5 gallon rule" I think is what they call it. Basically, if the dock cop is smart enough to figure out your boat has ballast, he asks how many bags? When you say it has hard tanks and.....no he can't see them, he asks how many tanks. If you say "2" then you're good to go because they assume each tank is holding 2 gal of leftover potentially contaminated water. If you say "3", you get de-conned because you must have 6 gallons of bad water.

It's a good policy in general to keep invasive species down and I support it to the extent that I don't want to see our waters go dead, but suffice it to say, when asked how many ballast tanks I have, I say "2" and I take care of the Mussel problem myself on my boat.

I agree, but I think their thought process is for the ones they miss and it's a saftey percaution. Truthfully it seems to be something that the rest of the lakes see as the best way since powell would have let us go in without inspection due to it.

Originally Posted by cjh1669

I agree, but I think their thought process is for the ones they miss and it's a saftey percaution. Truthfully it seems to be something that the rest of the lakes see as the best way since powell would have let us go in without inspection due to it.

Doesn't Powell already have Zebra Mussels?
I've onlybeen down there once in recent years and I had no inspection. Just the paper on the dash IIRC.
I can understand it I guess on little lakes like Standley that are completly mussel free. Good way to keep it that way.
Just think that would be terrible if it was the norm. You'd never be able to switch lakes even with the green tag on the bow eye. Lose 2 weeks every time you want to go to another lake.
Chlorine kills the mussels basically instantly from what I've read. Why not just chlorinate the tanks for a few minutes and then neutralize it back out with some sodium thiosulfate??
Seems easier than the guy with the pressure washer and a fake a lake!

Originally Posted by Thrall

Doesn't Powell already have Zebra Mussels?
I've onlybeen down there once in recent years and I had no inspection. Just the paper on the dash IIRC.
I can understand it I guess on little lakes like Standley that are completly mussel free. Good way to keep it that way.
Just think that would be terrible if it was the norm. You'd never be able to switch lakes even with the green tag on the bow eye. Lose 2 weeks every time you want to go to another lake.
Chlorine kills the mussels basically instantly from what I've read. Why not just chlorinate the tanks for a few minutes and then neutralize it back out with some sodium thiosulfate??
Seems easier than the guy with the pressure washer and a fake a lake!

They have had some positive tests, but also some negative ones. I think they aren't sure if they do or don't.
If it was the norm, and all the lakes did it, then you'd be able to go to any lake and you wouldn't have to worry about muscles, because they wouldn't be able to spread them. As long as you had a green tag you could get on any lake that did the same inspections and be retagged when you left.
I think the way they look at it is that the only 100% way to get rid of them from a boat is to wash it and have it sit dry for a specific number of days. All the other ways aren't 100%