Boot Brushes Against Invasive Species in Alaska's National Parks

A boot brush station at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, for scrubbing invasive species off footwear. NPS photo.

The project

Funding: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, invasive species program — $20,000 in FY24.

The National Park Service will work with — and pass funding to — other Department of the Interior bureaus and Alaska Native Tribal partners to install boot-cleaning stations at chosen spots: public-use cabins, trailheads, campgrounds, airstrips and other public access points on Interior lands, and in nearby rural communities. Such places are called critical control points — where the right methods can prevent, eliminate or reduce invasive species entering an area.

Why Alaska

Keeping invasive species out is hard everywhere, but especially urgent in Alaska, where much of the land and water still has few or no invasive organisms. More boot brushes at trailheads, cabins, airstrips and other public places would help slow their spread: visitors can clean their boots and avoid carrying seeds and other organisms in.

The threat is growing as the ecosystem changes quickly. One recent analysis of the invasive water plant Elodea estimated that its continued spread could cost Alaska's commercial sockeye salmon fisheries an average of $159 million a year — not counting losses to subsistence and recreational fishing. More boot brushes would help the parks be ready for that threat.

The parks involved include Gates of the Arctic, Katmai, Klondike Gold Rush, Lake Clark, Sitka and Wrangell–St. Elias.

About the funding

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests in the resilience and restoration of the nation's lands, skies and waters, and in conservation and recreation. Visitors should see the results: repaired trails and campgrounds, invasive species removed, and healthier wetlands, grasslands and forests.

Sources

Based on "Project Profile: Invasive Species Prevention at Critical Control Points in National Parks," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.