Boat washing and flushing boat engines can remove possible hitchhiking invasive species, before the boat enters the lake. Photo: Leslie Mertz.
Editor’s Note: It’s an Echo tradition to revisit one of our favorite holiday stories: Tim Campbell’s The Twelve Days of Aquatic Invasive Species Christmas.
Campbell rewrote the lyrics of the holiday tune for the Wisconsin Sea Grant in 2011. We’re publishing a new verse on each of the actual twelve days of Christmas.
On the fifth day of Christmas, a freighter sent to me…
FIVE BOAT-WASH STATIONS! — I wish we had five boat-wash stations in Wisconsin! Actually, the new term for boat-wash station is “decontamination station,” but since it had too many syllables I took some artistic license and used boat-wash station instead. A boat-wash station can be any station that uses water to clean off a boat, whether it is to remove organisms or to just clean off muck. Decontamination stations, however, use hot water (+140 degrees F!) and special attachments to “cook” any organisms on or in a boat, resulting in the total sterilization of the boat. The WDNR currently has one decontamination station, and is hoping to have at least one more next summer. No decontamination station nearby? Don’t sweat it; a light bleach solution will do the job. Commercial car washes are also quite effective, as are the third day’s gifts.
Four perch on ice, three clean boat steps, two red swamp crayfish and a carp barrier in the city!