BANGOR – Boaters will be able to buy their milfoil stickers at the Bangor Civic Center during the annual boat show this weekend, Skip Chappelle, co-director for the show, said Friday.

The $10 stickers also will be given out as door prizes throughout the weekend, and a representative from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will be available to sell stickers and to answer questions about a new program to restrict growth of the nuisance plant.

Eurasian milfoil is a fast-growing plant that can take over a lake or pond in just a few years, clogging the water and killing off aquatic life.

Beginning this spring, boaters will be required to display the new sticker, which indicates that they have cleaned all milfoil plant material from the vessel before placing it in a Maine waterway. Fines for infesting a lake range as high as $5,000 under the new state law.

Proceeds from the sticker sales will be used to educate boaters and to combat the milfoil that has already taken root in a handful of Maine lakes.

Chappelle hopes that giving space and attention to the new milfoil protection program at the show will encourage boaters to learn more about the problems created by the plant, he said.

Rep. Matt Dunlap, D-Old Town, was also at the Civic Center on Friday to explain the importance of the new milfoil protection program.

“It’s like a glacier. You can’t stop it once it starts moving,” Dunlap said.

Several other states have had reduced lakeshore property values as a result of dense milfoil growth, and Vermont alone has spent $12 million over the last decade battling milfoil in just 54 lakes.

“Maine has something like 4,000 lakes – you do the math,” Dunlap said.