If, as Sen. John Martin says, $100 boat inspections and $5,000 fines are being proposed merely to get the public’s attention on the problem of Eurasian watermilfoil, the senator and his Natural Resources Committee colleagues can consider their mission accomplished. The public’s attention now fully engaged, the committee’s next task is to drop the inflammatory proposal and to develop a workable plan to combat this lake-clogging plant.

Better yet, the committee could encourage this Legislature to adopt a workable plan already developed by the Invasive Maine Aquatic Species work group appointed by the previous Legislature just a year ago. This panel of scientists, user groups and law enforcement put together a report that aptly describes the entire problem of aquatic invaders – a problem much bigger than one particular plant – and recommends an approach that primarily is based upon public education, citizen involvement and boater responsibility, with a touch of the punitive when called for. The unfortunate result of proposing ridiculous fees and fines is that the ridicule must subside before this constructive work can begin.

Eurasian milfoil is a problem. Introduced to this country a century ago as aquarium decoration, it is a fast-growing plant with no natural predators. It has been a huge problem in such states as Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont, completely covering some lakes and requiring expensive remedies. Those states also have conducted extensive research on milfoil control and eradication. Maine is one of just three states with no Eurasian milfoil colonies, or at least no known colonies, and so has the opportunity to learn from other states and avoid their expensive, and in some cases disastrous, mistakes.

Milfoil spreads primarily through cuttings. What other states have learned is that the best defense is to educate boaters and anglers to clean boats, trailers and other equipment of all vegetation before use, and to educate all outdoor enthusiasts to recognize milfoil and to know where to report it. If spotted early, a colony of milfoil can be cheaply and quickly pulled out by divers; the once-common method of eradication – mowing infested areas – is unrealistically expensive and eventually aggravates the problem by creating cuttings. Although herbicides have been effective, they are also controversial and harmful to desirable species. Research elsewhere has had success in introducing insect predators, such as the milfoil weevil and a particular type of caterpillar, which feed on milfoil and nothing else.

No state with successful milfoil control employs such punitive measures as proposed by the Natural Resources Committee. The successful model is widespread and persistent education and close coordination between relevant state agencies and citizen groups, such as lake associations and fishing clubs.

The Maine work group reports, in fact, that this state already has some fairly extensive education programs, they just need expansion and coordination. The Department of Environmental Protection produces a brochure on invasive species, the departments of Conservation and of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife have descriptive signs at many boat ramps and plan more, the Turnpike Authority distributes information at tollbooths.

On the punitive side, the work group notes that Maine already has a law prohibiting the import of invasive nonnative species; it’s just virtually impossible to enforce. The existing law requires proving the importation to be intentional, it mandates a first warning but offers no way to track warnings, it carries a fine too small to prosecute. This law could be made effective by simply amending it to put the burden on the user to have a clean boat and trailer and increasing the fine for launching an infested boat to a level that makes shouldering that burden worthwhile – the work group suggests $1,500.

The work group also suggests an appropriation of $185,000 for an ongoing effort to coordinate and expand agency and citizen efforts and to leverage federal government and foundation grants. That seems a reasonable price to pay to prevent a potential problem from becoming, as it has elsewhere, a crisis. Now that the Natural Resources Committee is done trying to create a crisis, perhaps it can get down to something so reasonable.