No powerboat has plied the waters of Standley Lake in additional than 4 years.
And it doesn’t appear to be such watercraft will probably be allowed to launch any time quickly on the 1,063-acre reservoir in Westminster, a supply of ingesting water for 350,000 folks in metro Denver.
Northglenn Mayor Meredith Leighty not too long ago penned a letter to Westminster saying her metropolis “just isn’t ” in coming into discussions to elevate the trailered boat ban that was imposed in early 2019 over fears of introducing non-native mussels — specifically quagga and zebra — to the lake.
“Northglenn’s water in Standley Lake is irreplaceable, valued at greater than $209 million,” Leighty wrote within the Dec. 5 letter. “There is no such thing as a degree of threat that our group is keen to simply accept on the subject of defending our ingesting water provide.”
However Westminster Councilman Dave DeMott stated it’s “not sensible” to function on a zero-risk foundation “as there is no such thing as a space the place zero threat exists on this world.” He’s heard from boating fans that they’re “pissed off” with the ban, which was made everlasting in late 2019.
“I’ve constantly heard water security first from them and a need to work collectively for a workable resolution to permit boats on the lake,” DeMott stated.
Westminster issued 473 permits for trailered boats in 2018, the yr earlier than the ban took impact. It took in practically half 1,000,000 {dollars} in allow charges.
Northglenn — together with Westminster, Thornton and the Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Firm — personal the 42,000 acre-feet of water within the lake, which serves as the only real provide of ingesting water for each Westminster and Northglenn.
Standley Lake, which is fed by three canals diverted off of Clear Creek, accounts for a couple of quarter of Thornton’s ingesting water provide. It, too, is in favor of sustaining the trailered boat ban.
Any change in boating coverage must be agreed to by the three cities.
The zebra mussel, native to jap Europe’s Black Sea space, and the quagga mussel, native to Ukraine, arrived in america within the late Nineteen Eighties. Colorado Parks & Wildlife Invasive Species Program Supervisor Robert Walters stated each mussels “are extraordinarily prolific at replica,” with one feminine mussel in a position to produce as much as a million eggs per yr.
The mussels clog consumption pipes and water distribution techniques and may “smother and kill native organisms,” Walters stated. Every mussel can filter a liter of water a day, which means they will “filter the entire vitamins out of the water, which is the bottom of the meals chain.”
The mussels sometimes enter a physique of water by hitching a trip on boats uncovered to mussel-bearing waters. They’re notably adept at hiding in compartments on larger boats — sometimes within the bilge and ballast techniques — which might be troublesome to decontaminate.
“There is no such thing as a expertise that exists immediately that stops the specter of aquatic nuisance species… from catastrophically damaging our water provide,” Leighty wrote in her letter.
Northglenn’s choice was possible re-affirmed by the September discovery of a single zebra mussel in Highline Lake State Park, northwest of Grand Junction. In late October, Colorado Parks & Wildlife introduced extra zebra mussels had been present in Highline Lake, giving the lake an official infestation itemizing.
CPW says Highline Lake is at the moment the one Colorado physique of water infested with zebra mussels. No quagga mussels are identified to exist within the state, although Lake Powell in Utah has them.
“We don’t see the worth in risking our ingesting water provide for the advantage of a small group of individuals,” stated Tami Moon, Northglenn’s environmental supervisor. “That’s the solely place we now have to retailer our water.”
Westminster started a decontamination and boat quarantine program in 2007 at Standley Lake Regional Park to stave off the introduction of the mussels however in 2018 discovered two dozen boaters “intentionally bypassing protecting measures,” resulting in the ban.
Britt Terry, who lived in Westminster for 20 years and now resides in Erie, began the Mates of Standley Lake group in 2019 to protest the prohibition on trailered boats. He stated he is aware of of neighbors who’ve stowed or bought their boats, and even moved elsewhere, as a result of ban.
He referred to as the motorboat ban overreach and hopes the three cities will reconvene on the problem earlier than their intergovernmental settlement on the operation of Standley Lake comes up for renewal in 2030.
“It was the equal of a jail discovering cigarettes inside the power and simply shutting it down versus fixing the safety breach!” he stated of the ban. “I imagine the town of Westminster ought to take the lead with regard to assembling a plan — with a aim of creating it occur.”
Westminster Councilman Wealthy Seymour stated step one is getting everybody to the desk.
“Discussions want keen events to be on the desk,” he stated. “If Northglenn needs a zero-risk coverage then we should always shut the lake to all makes use of and put a fence round it.”
It is not sensible, Seymour stated, that each one boaters should undergo as a result of a handful violated decontamination and quarantine protocols.
“The violators had been found when employees used a database that confirmed boats that had checked into different lakes had been tagged to come back again to Standley solely,” he stated. “Had we been utilizing that database all alongside, the violators may have been banned individually.”
Seymour holds out hope that expertise will advance to the purpose the place stopping the introduction of quagga and zebra mussels on trailered boats may be accomplished shortly and effectively. He pointed to a “decontamination dip tank” that has been used at Lake Powell.
Boaters again their vessel into the tank, which is heated to greater than 110 levels, and the new water kills the mussels in lower than 10 minutes.
“It’s identified science that scorching water kills zebra/quagga mussels,” Seymour stated. “The boating group, from day one, was keen to pay for superior cleansing techniques by way of allow prices.