Patagonia Passed, Simms Failed my test on invasives

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
1

I wrote both Simms and Patagonia for their suggestions on decontamination. I asked the same question using their web sites and then with a direct e-mail to their customer service. I asked the question below:

“What decontamination methods for Dydimo, NZ Mud Snails, Whirling Disease, and Zebra Mussels are effective and approved by you for your Waders and Boots? Are these methods safe for your gear and are the damages from these methods covered under your warranty?”

It has been a week since my first message and Simms never replied to either question. I have sent a followup mesage to Simms and they have yet to reply to that. Patagonia replied within 2 hours to the first and within 12 hours to the second message. According to the the replies from Patagonia, there is NO Chemical Method that is approved, only complete drying or freezing of gear.

The second reply from Bill K of Patagaonia was personalized and said it best:

“This is a very good question and one that comes up often. Our suggestion that has been agreed by all the resource folks we work with all over the West - National Parks, Forest Service, fish and game, universities, etc is to Clean, Inspect and Dry your gear after use. Remove all particulate matter, brush if you can, then rinse them and let them dry. Drying is a difficult part since anglers may be fishing for a week or so and moving to different watersheds. So do the best one can. I found that buying a brush and those flip top Rubbermaid containers cost $20. And I place boots and waders in the water (top between the flip top) and rinse as I dry to and from river. The brush I use when getting out of water to remove particulate matter. This is a great, inexpensive and handy way to reduce this threat. Think like a saltwater angler as you have to rinse all your gear well after use.”

“Using chemicals can create damage to gear. And we do not know long term issues with water, insects, hatch etc. using chemicals. This was the best method. The ideal, but difficult method is to freeze your gear. I know a number of lodges that are doing this for their clients. www.cleanangling.com is a good website to review. I can provide more detailed info if you need this?”

The first Patagonia reply seemed automated:

"Thanks for your email. To prevent the spread of invasive species, we recommend the following measures:

  • Do not transport fish or fish parts from one drainage to another. Disposing of one infected fish in a clear drainage provides enough spores to start a new infection.

    • Rinse all mud and debris from waders, shoes, and all equipment.

    • Completely dry all wading equipment before wading new water.

    • Drain water from boats and rinse off all mud before leaving infected*waters.

    • Fish from the bank or a boat.

    For further information and ideas on how to avoid cross-contamination, please see

http://protectyourwaters.net/prevention/prevention_generic.php#1."

I’m disappointed that Simms, the largest manufacturer and seller of wading gear did not reply to my initial and followup contacts.

I think it Patagonia has it right. Anglers are not going to use destructive chemicals on their gear nor are they going to use chemicals like bleach that can accidentally destroy the inside of their vehicles should containers leak. The brush and dry method that Bill suggests seems to be the best compromise. I already have a Rubbermaid container that I put my boots in so the don’t get the inside of my vehicle dirty.

Personally, I have a separate set of wading gear for travel and home use. I figure the boots and waders will last twice as long. Between trips, the travel set has weeks to dry out.

2

Personally I can’t afford either of these manufacturers products, but I’ll bet the response wouldn’t be any better from lower priced producers. I’ll credit Patagonia though for their concern. Most of all you deserve credit for pursuing this problem *****!

Here’s an idea if you’d like to run with it…Maybe for 50 bucks or so you could ozonate your Rubbermaid tub filled with your gear and water.As long as your gear was all synthetics I don’t see much damage being done. The ozone will take care of the organics.

We need a water treatment engineer to comment here. A question like this is well above my pay-grade. I have seen amazing results using ozone treatment for polishing and purifying water of organics and I’m sure there is some way the technology can be applied. I suppose decontamination could be done either using the the gas itself or using water as a medium. These are questions a scientist or engineer can answer.

3 cheers!!!

hairwing

3

I’ll bet pulling on a pair of frozen waders would you up in the morning!

I guess I could let the warm up a bit first.

Roy

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I’ve found what I consider errors in official publications from my state. For example my Wisconsin River Alliance and the Wisconisin DNR recommends a soak in a 2% solution of bleach for Didymo:

http://wisconsinrivers.org/documents/AIS/Didymo_WT910_Final.pdf

Apparently they did not check out the destructiveness of bleach or check with the manufacturers of wading equipment.

The state of California Department of Fish and Game did a study of chemical decontamination methods. They found that a concentrated solution of bleach destroyed waders and boots in during a series of 7 soakings of 30 minutes each. Bleach is an oxidizer and although 2% is a much lower concentration fro a shorter time, I believe it will eventually destroy your equipment by letting the bleach remain in contact as it air dries.

http://www.scwa2.com/documents/NZMS/NZMS%20Final%20Report%2003.pdf

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So what do you think of the salt didymo washing ???

6

How about UV sterilization?

http://www.luggage.com/asp/show_detail.asp?sku=PUA1001

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I can’t help but wonder what the elk, caribou, waterfowl, etc. do to prevent the spread of invasives from one watershed, lake, etc. to another during migrations. I mean - I’m all for keeping my impact on the environment in check. I use a Monomaster, wear the new non-felt studded soles from Korkers, and try to keep my waders and kayak reasonably clean. But let’s not lose our perspective. We’re only a very tiny variable in the equation.

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Migrating wildlife takes some time to go from one watershed to another. Hopefully travel through brush and grass will remove what survives drying out. We humans can be fishing on one continent today and another tomorrow. We are the major carrier of invasives.

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Flyguy66,
You have “NAILED” it with your “We’re only a tiny variable in the equation”.
Rainbowchaser, how can you POSSIBLY substantiate your “We are…” statement??? What about BILLIONS of migrationg waterfowl? “Hopefully” is also not an oft used term in proving anything much less the survivability or not of invasives in your “brush and grass” scenario.

Mark

Silver Creek, my apology for the deviation from your original post . I do appreciate your effort in this matter .

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Avian Cholera, influenzas, red rice and other exotic plant materials from the other end of migratory corridors ending up in highly cultivated ag fields…just to name a few. Biologic organisms can live indefinitely on warm-bodied hosts, and plant seeds have amazingly long dormant phases in many cases. Even the wind moves these things around as much or more than we do.

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While no one would be crazy enough to do rigorous testing of how to carry invasives the anecdotal evidence is overwheliming. Eco-systems exist in balance within themselves for millenia until humans carry in new species deliberately as we did with brown trout or carelessly as we have done with zebra mussel,asian carp and many others. Oceans, deserts and mountain ranges were sufficient to protect native species from natural introduction of competitive species or we would not have had the diversity of wildlife we did on this continent when Europeans arrived. Just in the area of trout we have lost much of the native stock of brookies and cutthroats. To say that we can just ignore the problem of invasives because they will spread anyway is irresponsible. We remain the primary carrier of these species because we are the most mobile species on the planet.

12

I didn’t say that, Jim. I said I am mindful of minimizing my negative impacts on my habitat. I gave some specific examples which…by the way…go far beyond what most anglers do. I’ve also called for a phase-out on the use of 2-cycle outboard motors…one of the most harmful things recreational anglers and waterfowl hunters routinely do for several reasons. I got rid of mine years ago.

But I also opposed legislation in MO a decade ago that wanted to outlaw 2-cycle outboards immediately for everyone but government owned boats. The bill’s sponsor received large contributions from Honda USA, who had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying in favor of the bill. They make small 4-stroke motors…no 2-strokes. They also were instrumental in passing the regs on Lake Tahoe.

In spite of this alleged “overwhelming anecdotal evidence,” a huge red flag if there ever was one to anyone who cares about facts, the cold hard reality is that ultra-mobile man is still only a fraction of the “invasive species” debate. We can start by looking at your claim about ecosystems existing in a vacuum for millenia before “the white man got here.” This type of thinking just has no basis in historical or scientific fact. It is sort of a Garden of Eden mentality…one that ironically is even popular among many wildlife managers who should know better, but who benefit politically from the myth. “All those native species” you referred to existing in a protected state prior to our arrival didn’t just magically appear here all at once. They too at one point were “invasive species.” This is a scientific fact. And let us not forget that there were humans here in significant numbers for a very long time before Europeans got here several hundred years ago. And they were predominantly nomadic. They cultivated, hunted, and fished for subsistence, and traded fairly widely. These are scientific and historical facts. Many of what we perceive to be “native” species…including those “Native” Americans…were moved to where we found them by the activity of MAN. We know from scientific analysis that a substantial chunk of the Native American tribes trace their genetic lineage to North Asian Pacific peoples who still live today in places like Siberia, Kamchatka, Sakhalin Island, Korea, Mongolia, etc. They didn’t just magically appear here hunting buffalo and growing corn. Nor did they exist in isolation, peace, and harmony…protected by Mother Nature…until the evil white man got here. They were ravaged by pestilence and disease, fought wars with each other over turf, raided one another for material gain, enslaved each other, and moved around from ecosystem to ecosystem carrying with them seeds, germs, animals, etc. These are scientific and historical facts. People are pretty much people regardless of color, creed, or gender. And people are animals. And there are many things all animals have in common. These are scientific and historical facts.

My point is this:

I’m all for phasing out the 2-stoke because it’s bad for us. But I opposed doing it in a way that was even worse for us. The sky isn’t falling. But we can be smarter and should! And that is sort of how I view this entire effort to whip people into a frenzy about felt soled wading boots. And the Zebra Mussel threat is a threat to isolated lakes and ponds. I do not see it as a real ecological threat to connected and large bodies of water. The only case that has been made for a “threat” to those types of waterways is not ecological, but economic (increased infrastructure costs). And with felt, I don’t think the issue rises to the level of legislative necessity. Bootmakers have only just begun offering alternative soles that work, and we haven’t even given anglers a chance to buy them voluntarily. Yet, we’re already rushing to FORCE them to buy them by robbing them of their freedom to choose. I do NOT like that! Call me a cynic or a skeptic or whatever, but it looks and smells an awful lot like Honda and their push to ban 2-stroke outboard motors the year after they struck a deal to mfg virtually all small 4-stroke outboards in the US. Personally, I don’t like for-profit companies using the power of the government to take money out of my pocket and limit my freedom of choice. That’s called fascism - another historical fact.

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I think a point that is often missed out of our personal greed to control things…is that nothing stays the same. Just because since “our” recorded history, we can only recall a certain body of water looking and holding certain willife in a particular manner, does not mean that it always did. I’ve hunted some areas and stalked through some beautiful mountain meadows…that when really studies obviously were lakes once fed by a spring and signs of the beaver dams were still there albeit hidden from a casual glance. At one time that meadow was full of brook trout & wonderful hatches. Taming with all the wildlife that inhabit wetlands. Who knows what destroyed it? Maybe the natural cycle? Maybe a forest fire? Maybe that area was unwilling to give up what it was to the invasive beavers? Bottom line is, it changed. For some…it was for the better. For others, it may have been at the detriment of their species. But it’s still there. Changed and going on. I think in all our protectionism, we lose sight of that. Thinking we know everything…and by controlling things we preserve areas as they supposedly “should” be. But most times, it’s us trying to control things as we “wish” them to remain. “Should” has nothing to do with the situation.

For whatever reason, seldom is a lake a lake forever. The natural cycle is for that lake to become a meadow. And almost everytime it’s an invasive species that chokes it out. Warms it up. Creates the sediment. And changes the local ecosystem into what it “WILL” be…not what we “WISH” it to remain.

14

We have gone around and around for YEARS about what causes didimo, and what spreads it, and how to contain it, and how to eliminate it … and blah, blah blah!

Sure, animals spread it. Migrating fowl spread it. PEOPLE spread it. On their boats, waders, boots, flylines, flies, dumping fish from one place to another. A little common sense and consideration goes a long ways to alleviating this problem.

The industry has taken steps to help. People, at least a few of them, are taking steps to help. Education and awareness are the best deterrents to the spread of all kinds of horrid little things that can be found out there.

One persons holier than thou attitude isn’t going to do much more than make a bunch of people angry. Thinking before you do something … now that’s a novel idea!

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I feel we, as a group, should try and do everything in our power to not spread a problem. To state that since animals and birds are spreading it we should not do anything is the same as saying we may as well continue spreading litter because everyone else is. In other words, don’t add to the problem.

Just because everyone or everything is doing a wrong is not justification for us doing it too. We should always try to do the right thing whether everyone else is or not.

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Warren,

You and I are almost in complete agreement. I didn’t say that because other things are spreading invasive X, we shouldn’t worry about the fact that we’re spreading invasive X…Y or Z for that matter.

I’m saying that because we can control only a portion of it, we should be realistic about two things: a) the steps we DO take to minimize our impact, and b) the cost-benefit analysis - this whole “native” is good and everything else is “invasive” mentality is 1) a logical fallacy, and 2) dangerous in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin! Like a nice looking lawn? HIGHLY INVASIVE EXOTICS! How about those fresh fruits and vegetables? mostly INVASIVES! Anybody live on the northern plains and like the trees around their house, along a stream, or that make those nice windbreaks used to reduce soil erosion and snow drifts? EXOTIC INVASIVES! How about the roses out behind the house, ladies? Pets? Even Denny’s chickens are exotic invasives if they get loose and aren’t recaptured. The point I’m making is that we always have to apply common sense and take reasonable steps to minimize our negative impact on our habitat…as Betty said. When I chimed in on this thread, folks were beginning to talk about freezing, ultraviolet light stelization, and I was waiting for someone to suggest we all invest in an irradiation chamber! Not too long ago, we were ALL invasive species. LOL

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I think like is often the case…we can tend to take things way too far. Is everybody realisticly going to steralize their waders and boots between each outing? I highly doubt it. Heck half the season my gear doesn’t get any further than from the water, to the back of my jeep. Fact of life.