Aquatic Invasive Species “Landing Blitz” at the Lake Avenue Boat Launch, Carleton PlaceJuly, 2025

 Report by Rob Bell, MLA President

The Invasive Species Challenge for Mississippi Lake

The MLA has undertaken three invasive species surveys over the last 7 years. We are aware of two key Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) in our lake today: Zebra Mussels and Eurasian Milfoil. Any boat leaving our lake could be carrying either species on its hull or attached to its trailer.

Alternatively, any boat arriving at a Mississippi Lake launch could have other invasives attached to it, or in a live well or a bait bucket.

Taking Action

Since 2022 Ontario has had regulations requiring boaters to clean, drain and dry their boats and equipment, before transporting. However, there does not appear to be enforcement of these regulations.

To slow the spread of AIS into and out of our lake, we need to educate boaters about the regulations, both at our Mississippi Lake boat launches as well as at nearby water bodies within driving range.

The 2025 Landing Blitz (see glc.org/work/blitz)

The MLA decided to invest the effort and money (for t-shirts, signs, handouts) to conduct a “Landing Blitz” educational program, to meet with boaters between June 30 and July 12, 2025. At the Lake Avenue boat launch in Carleton Place, with the assistance of 7 high school students (aged 14-15) from Carleton Place High School, we were able to survey 51 boaters over two weeks. Here are the results from our survey questions:

• Before today, were you aware of Ontario’s 2022 regulations requiring boats to be cleaned, drained, and dried before moving to a new waterbody?

  • Yes – 78%

  •  No- 22%

  
  

• Do you regularly clean, drain, and dry your boat and equipment after use?

  • Always – 71%

  • Sometimes + Rarely – 29%

    
    

• Where do you get information about boating regulations and AIS prevention?

  • Social media – 57%

  • Government websites – 31%

  • Friends or other boaters – 10%

  • Marinas or boat launches – 0%

  • Other (please specify) Boating course – 6%

  (Note- adds up to more than 100 since some had multiple sources)

  
  

• Would you support the installation of a permanent boat washing station at this location to prevent the spread of invasive species?

  • Yes- 67%

  • No- 16%

  • Maybe- 16%

• Would you donate or help raise funds for a boat washing station in this area?

  • Yes + Possibly --  51%

  • No – 47%                                (One did not respond to this question)

    
    
  
  

  Number of respondents who gave us their name and email address- 17

 

 

What do these numbers mean?

1. Almost a quarter of respondents did not know about the new regulations. (Maybe more!)

2. Almost 30% of respondents do not clean their boats to remove AIS. And those were the honest ones! We did not see one bilge drained.

3. Social media is the principal way boaters get their information about regulations. We need our enforcement officials to use it.

4. Most of the respondents were in favour of having a permanent washing station available which is good- but only half were willing to donate for one or help raise money.

5. We obtained 17 email addresses for follow up.

   
   

Fishing Tournament Day

On Sunday July 6 there was a fishing tournament. The landing blitz team counted seventy-five boat removals that afternoon. We did not see one bilge drained. We did not see any efforts to clean boats at the launch. All the fishing boats were trailered approximately ½ a kilometre down the road (out of reach of our team for surveying purposes) presumably to be prepared for travel. They all used the ‘no parking’ area on the east side of Lake Avenue. Given the volume of traffic and long lines of vehicles with trailers waiting to retrieve fishing boats, this was a practical location which also coincided with Fishing Tournament HQ at the Riverside Park dock. In contrast, other boaters always prepared for travel right at the launch where they could be approached and surveyed.

Key Objectives for Further Efforts

One important perspective will be to enumerate the key objectives for the MLA. Here are some possibilities:

• Educate boaters about the 2022 Clean and Drain regulations (which was the 2025 key objective)

• Create an MLA friendly and aware group of students, teachers and principal at CPHS (a happy byproduct of this year’s efforts, but could become a key objective)

• Convince the fishing tournament community (with help from OFAH) that slowing the spread of invasive species must be one of their operational goals and that all boaters must adhere to the discipline of Clean, Drain and Dry

Possible Ways Ahead

Here is a list of ideas to discuss the possibility of future events and projects:

Another Landing Blitz

• Review timing and schedule

• Identify more adult volunteers to reduce the load on organizers

• Focus on fishing tournaments - Contact tournament organizers, work with enforcement officials to provide incentive for compliance

Focus on Advocacy to inform boaters and tournament organizers

• Regularly utilize social media to remind local boaters about the challenge, the law, and their responsibilities to Clean-Drain-Dry

• Liaise with Tournament organizers, whose participants are most likely to move to multiple lakes, and are most in a rush to depart boat launches, and might be highly impacted by invasive species damaging fish stocks

Focus on Enforcement

• Coordination with MNRF Conservation Officers – we saw no enforcement during our 2-week Landing Blitz, but we have contact information for the official in charge

• Suggest a social media campaign to Conservation Officials

• Ascertain the type of evidence to secure fines for non-compliant boaters

Start a fund-raising campaign for a boat cleaning station

• Research cleaning stations elsewhere, to evaluate their effectiveness and learn the factors required for success

• Need a traffic flow analysis of CP boat launch particularly during fishing tournaments

• Need city co-operation for land, power and water supply

• Possibly borrow a mobile cleaning station as a demonstration

Launch a Landing Blitz at other Lakes - to Help Slow the Spread to Our Lake!!!

• Solicit partners like Watersheds Canada to broaden Landing Blitz efforts

• Use the Lake Networking Group to promote more Landing Blitz type activities

• Convince the fishing tournament community (with help from OFAH) that there is tremendous value in adopting Clean, Drain and Dry as an organizational principle -and the need to help facilitate Landing Blitzes - it can’t just be lake associations