Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife Grant: Lake Roosevelt Quagga Mussel Rapid Response Exercise

The WRCO, host of the Washington Invasive Species Council (WISC), in coordination with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Park Service at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LRNRA) will conduct a 5-day enhanced cooperative rapid response exercise (RRE) on Lake Roosevelt. Enhancement of the RRE entails both incident command center activities and on-the-ground activities to include deployment of field staff for site containment using sediment/turbidity barriers, watercraft inspection/decontamination stations, extent of infestation sampling (veliger tows, shoreline surveys, diver surveys, etc.), and “treatment” of contained site using non-toxic dye. RRE partners will include other federal and state resource agencies, Tribes, and local/regional stakeholders.

There have been numerous 2-day “table-top” rapid response exercises with field activities limited to a couple of diver survey operations. These exercises have been critical to testing state and regional rapid response plans regarding incident command operations, but very limited beyond initial and draft Incident Action Plan and in actual coordination and implementation of on-the-ground activities.  Failure to expand rapid response exercise to include field operations can cause significant delays in real life situations where timely containment of an infestation can save billions of dollars in mitigation costs if they spread.