The Okanagan Basin Water Board is renewing calls for the province to include mussel prevention and defence funding in tomorrow's budget.
Newly elected chair, Tracy Gray, says in addition to permanent funding, the board wants an expanded inspection and decontamination program.
Inspection and decontamination sites have been tried out as a pilot project, with last year’s sites being funded through BC Hydro, FortisBC, Columbia Power and Columbia Basin Trust.
“What we’re asking for with the budget announcement is for this to have permanent funding,” Gray says “and also to increase the number of hours and to also look at some regulatory changes as well, so that when boats come into this province there’s mandatory inspections”
She says invasive quagga and zebra mussels would be devastating to Okanagan waters.
“It attaches to everything. It’ll affect infrastructure, it’ll affect agricultural pipes, it attaches to boats, it attaches to docks”
A 2013 study done for the board estimates invasive mussels in the Okanagan would cost $43 million each year.
Gray says they're also calling on the federal government to do more.