Idaho Legislature’s budget committee signs off on $11.6M to fight invasive quagga mussels
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Clark Corbin, Idaho Capital Sun
BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — The Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to provide $11.6 million in next year’s budget to fight invasive quagga mussels that were detected last year in the Snake River near Twin Falls.
The money is included in the new spending requests in the enhanced fiscal year 2025 budget for the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little recommended the funding, which breaks down as $6.6 million from the general fund and $5 million from dedicated funds.
Quagga mussels are an invasive species that reproduce rapidly and are capable of clogging pipes used for drinking water and irrigation. The mussels can also quickly overwhelm the outer bodies of boats and other watercraft, state officials have said.
After discovering the mussels last September, Idaho Department of Agriculture officials used a copper-based chemical called Natrix in a 16-mile section of the Snake River in an attempt to kill off and wipe out the invasive species, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.
State officials said they hope they killed all the mussels, but they won’t know until temperatures are warm enough for water sampling to resume.
Last month, Idaho Department of Agriculture Director Chanel Tewalt told JFAC that the department would use the new funding to pay for two new full time positions and 18 temporary positions as the department seeks to double its water monitoring and sampling and increase the number of hot wash stations to clean boats.
On Wednesday, Sen. Scott Herndon, R-Sagle, and Rep. Josh Tanner, R-Eagle, tried to pass a reduced funding proposal of $10.1 million to fight quagga mussels that would not have included the two new full positions going forward. Tanner noted that the department has other vacant positions.
“I didn’t want to have two additional (full-time positions) going forward where they already have those vacancies,” Tanner said during the meeting.
But Rep. Britt Raybould, R-Rexburg, said the department’s vacant positions were simply a function of natural timing and turnover in the workforce. Raybould noted the vacant positions were not directly related to the quagga mussels response and are in the process being filled.
Other JFAC members said the threat quagga mussels present to water and agriculture industries demands the state be vigilant in stepping up its water monitoring and watercraft wash programs, including in hard-to-access sections of the river.
“As we went through this emergency, we heard (about) millions and millions of dollars that other states have thrown at this problem,” Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls, said. “Boy, I certainly don’t want to take a chance and say, ‘Oh, we don’t need this, let’s see what happens.’ I think it is well worth our while to get ahead of it and stay ahead of it.”
JFAC co-chair Sen. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, praised JFAC members for their give-and-take scrutinizing the budget and demonstrating to the public that funding requests are not a slam dunk. But after several rounds of questions, Grow cut off debate over competing quagga mussels budget proposals, saying that JFAC needed to save time for members to return to working groups that meet behind closed doors to prepare upcoming budgets.
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In the end, JFAC voted 17-3 to pass the Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2025 budget with the full $11.6 million to fight quagga mussels and the two new permanent full time positions.
The Department of Agriculture’s budget that passed Wednesday was actually redone as part of the fallout from the Idaho Legislature’s high profile budget showdown this year. The Department of Agriculture’s fiscal year 2025 budget was one of the competing budgets that 12 members of JFAC passed Feb. 2 when they rebelled against the committee’s co-chairs splitting up the budgets.
But since Feb. 2, Republicans in the Idaho House and Idaho Senate have closed ranks behind the new budget practices and passed the original bare-bones omnibus budgets endorsed by Grow and Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls.
Now that JFAC has passed the redone budget, the Department of Agriculture’s budget still needs to pass both the Idaho House of Representatives and the Idaho Senate and avoid Little’s veto stamp in order to become law.
JFAC did not finish its agenda Wednesday, after canceling a couple of meetings earlier in the year as budget debates played out behind the scenes. Grow said he is now expecting to set 11 budgets Friday, and pick up three others the committee didn’t get to Wednesday.
“We’re running behind, folks, so we are going to have to speed this up somehow, and we’ve got to give you time in your (working) groups because you have to get motions ready for Friday, which are some substantive motions,” Grow said at the end of Wednesday’s meeting.