Protect Our Waters: Don't Pick Up Hitchhikers!

Now that summer is here, when you head to the boat launch for a day on the water in NY State, you will often run into a friendly face in a blue vest. These are Boat Stewards! Boat Stewards are educators who share their knowledge of invasive species and how to prevent boats from spreading such species into other waterbodies.

You can expect to run into stewards across much of New York State, since there are more than 200 Stewards who are part of various programs.  Here at the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, our Boat Steward program is run in collaboration with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).

Beginning over the Memorial Day weekend, 20 Stewards are stationed at 25 different State Park boat launches. These experts can answer your questions about aquatic invasive species (AIS) within New York State, provide educational information on many species, and will help check that there are no aquatic hitchhikers on your boat or trailer!

All our stewards within the state will be wearing masks and practice social distancing for your protection and theirs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please arrive with your boats and equipment already clean, drained, and dried and be willing to help our stewards conduct inspections while maintaining social distance. Please follow the protocols for social distancing and wearing masks in public while at the launches.

When you arrive or leave a boat launch, a Steward will ask to perform a voluntary inspection on your watercraft and encourage you to join them. Remember, please practice social distancing, and stay six feet away from Stewards while they perform their duties.

Inspections apply to both power boats and paddlecraft, like canoes and kayaks.

While completing the inspection, Stewards are on a mission to find all visible plant or animal material attached to the watercraft and trailer and will point out places on the boat where aquatic invasive species often get caught. Stewards also gather information from boaters through a short survey to help understand the movement of AIS across the New York State.

At many locations across the state, Stewards operate Watercraft Decontamination Stations, also known as Boat Wash Stations. Decontamination stations are a free high-temperature, high-pressure wash for your boat.

Boat Wash Stations are highly effective at eradicating aquatic invasive species we might not be able to see with our naked eye, such as young Zebra Mussels or Spiny Waterfleas. The ESF-NYS OPRHP program operates two such units located at Allan Treman State Marine Park on Cayuga Lake and Conesus Lake State Boat Launch.

Click here for an interactive map of boat washing stations in the Adirondack watershed.

Since the program’s inception in 2014, our boat stewards have conducted more than 100,000  inspections and interacted with more than 250,000 boaters. In 2019, stewards intercepted 3,803 boats that were carrying invasive species.

Each of these boats could have led to a new introduction that has potential to cause significant harm to ecological, economic, and human health.

Species that Stewards most commonly find in the regions covered by our program are Eurasian WatermilfoilCurly Leaf Pondweed and Zebra Mussels.

*Editor's Note: All photographs from NYS Parks and reflect 2019 boating season

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Submitted by New Fairfield, CT

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