Thank you for inviting me to appear as a witness.
I was asked to say something about my background. I have a Ph.D. in population biology from the University of California, and my research was focused on factors that lead to the spread of invasive species. However, I have been working for the Okanagan Basin Water Board for 13 years. This is a local government watershed agency that has provided leadership on water in the Okanagan since 1970.
We are funded entirely through local property taxes. The water board has been running a program to manage invasive Eurasian water milfoil since the early 1970s, covering the entire costs with local tax dollars since 1992.
In the winter, we use shallow-water Rototillers to kill the milfoil roots while they are dormant. In the summer, we can also do a limited amount of cosmetic harvesting in areas to cut the growing weeds we cannot rototill, much as you would an underwater lawnmower. This is a management program. I run a management program. It has to be done every year, throughout the year, because once established, the weed can't be eradicated. We've had this weed for 40 years now. Our budget for milfoil alone is $850,000 annually with no senior government support.
You might have visited the Okanagan with your families, maybe for a summer holiday to enjoy the turquoise water of our lakes, to play on the beaches and to drink wine. The local first nations consider the Okanagan lakes to be sacred and are in the process of restoring the biggest run of sockeye salmon in the Columbia basin, making up more than 80% of the sockeye in the entire Columbia River system. Most of our drinking water comes from these lakes. We live around the lakes, we live in the lakes and we're famous internationally as a tourist destination because of the lakes.
Our communities are some of the fastest growing in Canada. People want to live, work and establish businesses in the Okanagan because of the beauty of the lakes. We are a water-based economy. Everything depends on keeping these water sources clean.
Ironically, the beauty of our lakes makes them especially vulnerable to aquatic invasive species as boaters come from all across North America to enjoy them. After climate change, aquatic invasive species are the single largest threat to the economy of the region. We've been able to self-fund this milfoil program because of its value to our communities. If we are not able to keep the beaches and waterways clean of rotting weeds and protect the quality of our water, we lose a significant aspect of our quality of life.
Right now, our ability to control milfoil is being threatened by a proposed endangered listing of the native Rocky Mountain ridged mussel. Although it is thought to be relatively abundant in the system and lives throughout the western United States, the Okanagan is the only place it occurs in Canada. The listing would effectively end our rototilling program and our control of milfoil. We are in the process of seeking an exemption under the federal Fisheries Act to allow us to at least keep the public beaches and boating areas free. We believe that the native mussel and our milfoil program can coexist.
I include this in my testimony because it's an example of what can happen if we don't stop the spread of aquatic invasive species. It will be extremely costly and much less effective to manage this weed if the native mussel is listed, and there will be no support or compensation from senior governments for all we will lose.
If barriers to the transport of aquatic invasive species had been in place in the 1970s, there would be no conflict between managing the native mussel and the invasive milfoil, and the local communities would not be spending $850,000 a year on the program.
This brings us to the worst of all aquatic invasive species threats to the Okanagan: invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Because our waters are warm and rich in calcium, we are thought to be among the most vulnerable areas in Canada to these invasives. When and if they arrive, the invasive mussels will breed rapidly. They will cover our beaches with sharp shells, crust the docks and bridges, clog the more than 1,000 municipal and private water intakes and irreparably harm the environment, including the native mussel and our salmon restoration.
Several years ago we did a study that projected the economic cost to be upwards of $40 million a year for the Okanagan alone. This included infrastructure impacts, losses to fisheries, tourism and property values.
The U.S. government is matching millions of dollars each year to the western states for their mussel prevention programs. The Canadian government has mostly given responsibility for preventing this threat to the provinces and dedicates only a small portion of the federal budgets for aquatic invasive species management to invasive mussel prevention.
ln the Okanagan, each year we are spending more than 75,000 of local government tax dollars for public awareness campaigns and to support monitoring, but we have no power, funding or jurisdiction to run inspection programs or to create a strong perimeter defence, which would probably be best established in Saskatchewan, or to ensure that CBSA officers are fully trained, committed and on task at all border crossings from the U.S.
While we greatly appreciate the $800,000 over three years that B.C. received in 2018 for preventing zebra and quagga mussels, it is less than a third of what we spend annually just on milfoil control just in the Okanagan.
This is an issue that should rally members of Parliament from all parties. Canada is one of the most freshwater-rich countries in the world, but we cannot take it for granted. This is our heritage. What do you value most? After public safety, British Columbians value our clean, healthy waters. Everything depends on it: our drinking water, our economy, our quality of life, our environment, even Okanagan wine.
Our experience has shown that once an aquatic invasive species has arrived in an area, they are next to impossible to eradicate, and it is an endless and expensive effort just to manage them. Not only is it more costly to manage invasive species than to prevent them, what we lose in the process can often never be replaced.
Thank you.