Park's AIS procedures criticized as not well reasoned

Glacier National Park has had seven months to get its act together — seven months and here is the result.

It was last November when Glacier National Park Superintendent Jeff Mow dramatically announced that he was closing all lakes in the park to use by any type of boats because of the threat of Aquatic Invasive Species, e.g., zebra mussels.

Having originally resided in Chicago, where these incredibly destructive creatures were first discovered after being discharged from bilges that had been overseas, I knew the destructive power that they could wreak if entered into the not so pristine waters of Glacier Park. The reason I say not so pristine is look what happened to the bull trout here.

My wife and I love to kayak. We were out last year on Bowman Lake in April — blocked this year until May 15. (Other than Lake McDonald — all other lakes in the park are closed to recreational kayaking until June 1). Wife Jane was the first person to kayak on Bowman Lake this year (I was the second) — the ranger even had to open the gate for us to get to the lake after he inspected our boats.

We had kayaked on Whitefish Lake several days before. They did an inspection and made us take a test (which we passed) and gave us a sticker to apply to our kayaks that allows us to enter the lake for the rest of the year without taking the time to do another inspection.

Not so in Glacier Park.

If you want to kayak Bowman or Kintla Lake, and you are a “local,” you have to find, according to an official press release that appears on the official Glacier Park website, a ranger to inspect your boat. It reads in part “Local users who live in more remote locations will be directed to the nearest ranger station for inspection.” This is a change from last season, when hand-propelled watercraft required visitors to complete an AIS-free self-certification form before launching into Glacier’s lakes.

The new head ranger for this park said he had never heard of that!

Seven months!

FYI — we live 14 miles north of Polebridge, which should qualify us as local users.

But what if the three people who are certified to check our boats — the head ranger for that part of the park, his deputy and the head ranger at Bowman — are not available? We were told that we must drive to Apgar and get a certification for that day — which is good for that day only.

Why isn’t the park employee at the ranger station certified to inspect our hand-propelled boats?

We were told it can’t be done. It would hold others up who wanted to access that part of the park — which is what I believe is their real goal — which is shutting down access to more and more people to this part of the park in order to create wilderness. Just like their new policy to stop people from going to Bowman or Kintla if they believe the parking lot is full.

At a meeting last year park officials were asked why don’t they create more parking spaces at these two locations. Their answer was very revealing, as the park person responded, “if we do that more people will want to recreate there.”

Why do we have to be inspected each time if we are locals?

We were told by one of the rangers we saw that day that “we don’t trust locals.”

Interesting that government officials often complain about people not trusting their government — then hearing a government official tell us that they don’t trust local people to tell the truth.

Try launching a kayak on Bowman or Kintla after 1 in the afternoon (which is probably the earliest you can do after a trip to Apgar) and you’ll face waves coming at you that are better to surf on because of the afternoon winds.

I asked the ranger whether they had dogs inspecting kayaks in Apgar — great guy but he never heard that dogs could inspect kayaks — they can. http://wd4c.org/invasivemussels.html

As for that AIS-free free-certification form — that we religiously filled out every time we entered Bowman or Kintla Lakes over the previous two years — no park person has ever asked to see it.

So what about Superintendent Mow’s dramatic announcement last fall — let’s see — Polebridge ranger station goes unmanned after 6 p.m.?

A late camper could arrive after that — set up camp and launch a boat that has not been inspected and leave in the morning before anyone asks to see an inspection slip.

If the threat is that great, the park needs to have inspections 24/7.

Why not get volunteers from the Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates to cover the entrance at Polebridge?

No one can enter Bowman or Kintla Lake without going over that bridge. We kayaked Lake MacDonald this spring. Our kayaks were inspected, but the ranger said we would have to take them off the top of our car. Which meant we would have to take the time to put them back up and secure them to get them to the launch site a quarter of a mile away.

We offered a stepstool and he inspected the boats. Seven months and GNP did not think to order a stepstool? Really?

And why did we see many more kayaks available for rent? If we have to be inspected EVERY TIME, are the concessionaires driving this as it is to their benefit financially? My kayak has only been to Whitefish Lake and the park, but I need to be inspected every time?

Thus far, no mussels have been found west of the Continental Divide — great news.

But GNP has volunteers from Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates manning dark skies efforts, yet there are no Volunteer Associates being used to inspect boats.

Apparently, based on his allocation of resources, Superintendent Mow is more interested in protecting his dark skies initiative than he is in protecting the waters of the park.

Novak is a resident of the North Fork.