As fall comes upon us many boaters will need to "dump" or "pump out" their boats head. In this month's edition of Your News Now's "Discover Better Boating" Series, Sea Grant Specialist Dave White takes a look at how to be good boating stewards.
Syracuse, NY, September 24, 2011 - Welcome aboard Discover Better Boating. I'm Dave White and today we're talking about being good boating stewards. Joining me today is Kim Vorchheimer from Ess-Kay yards here along the Erie Canal to talk about a new pump out regulation for boaters: "The pump out stations are helpful for the waterways because it takes the sewage from boats and puts it into either a holding tank that gets pumped out later on or into a sewer system so that the waterways are not contaminated with waste water," she says.
Another major issue we as boaters need to focus on is stopping the spread of invasives. "With this summer's discovery of both the Asian clam and hydrilla [an aquatic plant] in upstate New York waterways, we as boaters have to continue to be diligent in making sure that we're assisting and stopping aquatic hitchhikers," says White. "We want to make sure whenever we're boating and going from one body of water to another that we're making sure that we're not transporting invasive species." White encourages boaters to utilize aquatic invasive species disposal stations to dump their bait bucket and remove aquatic plants from anything that may come in contact with water, such as a boat engine, trailer or car.
Be sure to join us next month as we bring the boating season to an end and prepare our boats for winter storage.
Discover Better Boating is brought to you by the Boating Industries Association of Upstate New York, and New York Sea Grant. The Discover Better Boating segments will run on YNN stations every third Saturday through October.
The YNN channel, based in Syracuse, telecasts two separate program feeds, one to Central/Northern New York; one to the Southern Tier. YNN is available to nearly 600,000 cable subscribers across a 25-county, 15,000 square mile area.
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