Page 19 - Flathead Beacon // 12.7.16

Phil Matson, research specialist with the Flathead Lake Biological Station, collects an eDNA sample along the north shore of Flathead Lake on Dec. 2. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
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response plan, but rather is a partner in a regional Columbia River Basin plan, which Miske said isn’t tailored to the state’s speci c needs.
“Since the state doesn’t seem to be moving toward drafting its own rapid response plan, we are writing our own,” Miske said. “The notion that there has been a rapid response is incredible. There was no rapid response.”
Robert Wiltshire is executive director of the Invasive Species Action Network, a Livingston-based nonpro t that special- izes in coordinating training exercises designed to prepare state agencies for emergency scenarios like the one playing out in Montana. He’s currently writing an Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan for Nevada, and has been contacted in the past by state agencies in Montana to craft one here.
“We facilitate and conduct rapid response exercises where we bring peo- ple together, lock them in a room and give
them a scenario that a mussel has been found,” Wiltshire said. “We run through the exercises, bring dive teams in, put out sample press releases. We work through everything.”
In Montana, an Aquatic Nuisance Spe- cies Management Plan was completed in 2002, but it hasn’t developed the frame- work for a rapid response.
Still, agencies including the FWP, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Bureau of Reclamation, and Army Corps of Engineers appear to be working together, Wiltshire said, and have a command structure in place to deal with the issue in the future.
“I do believe that what they have laid out puts them on the right track,” he said. “I really feel like they are taking all the steps right now that need to be taken. If this serves as a wake-up call, that is the positivething.Whyittookthemsolong to respond, I don’t know.”
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DECEMBER 7, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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