I did the same thing with this post that I did with the first one - posting here, Westernbass, and SD Fish. So far 4 responses, all interesting and not what I expected.

In my I suggested that inspecting at all is a waste of time. Sounds like some people are all aboard with that idea and view this second post as irrelevant. That's cool, and I still standby the idea that inspections are ultimately an exercise in futility and money wasting.

This second post makes an assumption though that I did not explicitly spell out. The assumption is that the state and various water agencies will continue to do something about invasive species, especially the quagga/zebra mussels. I think this is a reasonable assumption because if all inspections were to stop, it would make the people who suggested them in the first place look incompetent.

My point in this 2nd post is therefore to suggest a new way of thinking about invasive species management. It's an education-centric approach with consistent application across the state. I'd like to think that this approach is a better long-term solution that costs less money and offers better overall protection against these mussels.

This contrasts with the current approach which offers no protection for many of the state's most important water assets - but which does offer a disjointed mix of education, inspection, boat banding, sticker application, and doing nothing.

Nico, I have no idea what is involved to mitigate mussels at large lakes vs. small lakes. There's no published information on the internet that I can find. It makes me wonder how all these water managers evaluated their water systems to determine how much it would cost to mitigate quagga mussels?