Talk about good timing, I had pulled Jeff Kemp aside for a brief interview after he finished addressing this month’s 20th annual meeting of the Swan Lakers, a local watershed group devoted to preserving and improving the water quality and resources of Swan Lake.
“Hello everyone, Jeff Kemp still,” he deadpanned to the appreciative audience of 100 or so. “And I will be your [intermittent] president again for the coming year. For one year! This is my third term despite the 25th Amendment. My joke.
“I’ll do it again for a year, that’s fine,” he continued, suggesting few other takers from the all-volunteer pool. “There’s a lot of things going on, they’re kind of interesting. I have some ideas I’d like to implement, and then somebody else will step in and take over.”
It occurred to me after listening to his subsequent remarks – detailing everything the Swan Lakers accomplish to shield the pristine lake from harm – followed by the genuine praise afforded Kemp by fellow speakers and attendees, that the on-again president merited digital ink.
Which I set out to do for this week’s column, until my two cents’ worth was overshadowed by a far more deserving development.
“Jeff Kemp … is our ‘Best in the West’ nominee,” came the announcement, alluding to outstanding candidates within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Western Regional Panel – nine western states, including Alaska and Hawaii, the territory of Guam, and four Canadian provinces—who exhibit dedication, passion and commitment to Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) management.
As far as WRP judges are concerned, the more “innovative and creative” an award winner is in protecting western waters, from watercraft inspection and early detection to laboratory tasks and outreach, the better.
“Jeff leads by example,” says the nomination submitted on behalf of Swan Lakers by Tom Bansak, associate director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station. “He can be found at the Swan Lake boat launch more than any of the rest of our loyal volunteers.
“In fact, whenever there are inspection shifts that no one signs up for, Jeff signs himself up … communicating with members of the public, educating them about the threats associated with AIS, and why the boat inspections are a necessary tool in our AIS prevention toolbox.”
And he doesn’t stop there.
“Even away from the boat ramp, Jeff is a champion of AIS awareness,” sharing his knowledge beyond conferences and community meetings with “neighbors on the street [and] whoever will listen at the grocery store or gas station.”
All said and done, it’s the hands-on AIS boat inspections – established by Kemp himself over a decade ago to keep the dreaded zebra and quagga mussels out of the shimmering 8-mile-long lake – that are most vital:
“Jeff by himself has engaged thousands of boaters – rain or shine (or even Montana’s unexpected summer snow),” the nomination reads.
The invasive mussels “would be disastrous should they ever be introduced into Swan Lake,” Kemp explained to me. “They’re a problem throughout the nation, and the only watershed that is not contaminated with those mussels at this point is the Columbia River.
“We are the headwaters of the Columbia River,” he noted. “And should they ever be introduced into Swan Lake they would eventually make their way all the way down the Columbia system. They’re a terrible thing.”
How bad are we talking?
They would “crash the fishery,” he replied, “crashing the food chain from the bottom up. They’ll get on the [Swan Lake] shoreline in the billions with their sharp shells – which are sharp as glass, you can’t walk barefoot on them. They’ll also cling to every piling and get into every pipe they can gain access to. So they’re a real threat.
“We hope by being here we can … intercept the boats should they be carrying mussels, or any other aquatic invasive species for that matter.”
The Best in the West recommendation, submitted in advance of the WRP’s annual conference hosted next month by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, mentions Kemp as being extremely “patient and tolerant of uninformed boaters,” which I happened to ask him about.
“The boaters are 98 percent happy to see us, they’re very friendly and forthcoming,” he said. “Now I have to say, going back 10 years, it wasn’t that way. But there’s been so much publicity, so much education and information passed to the boaters since that time, that we’ve lost that resistance. It was a little weird at first – people who connected us with ‘government overreach,’ although we are all volunteers.”
About a dozen reliable volunteers as of this writing, although certainly there’s need for more (AIS and boat-inspection training has been provided by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks).
In addition, Kemp said, “Swan Lakers have been testing these waters four times a year since about 2015, maybe a year prior to that. We take samples of the water in two different locations [north and south] and at different depths [up to 150 feet] testing for various constituents like temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyl, phosphorus, a number of things.
“The samples are then taken to the Flathead Lake Biological Station for [sophisticated equipment] analysis. And from that we can spot [potentially] troubling trends in the water quality of Swan Lake.
“So far so good,” he added.
Ditto with the monstrous mussels, so far.
“We are the absolute last line of defense,” Kemp reminded the Swan Lakers at their meeting. “If those aquatic mussels … ever got in here, by God it would be the end of this lake. In fact, the entire Columbia River Watershed would be contaminated with these critters.
“So far we’re looking pretty good, but let’s not get cocky about this and keep up on our diligence.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.