Boating safety class July 23
Registration is open for a boating safety class on July 23 at the Clark County Public Works Maintenance and Operations Conference Center, 4700 N.E. 78th St.
Washington regulations require most motor boat operators to take a safety course. The class includes navigation rules, safety skills, equipment requirements and more.
The class is offered by Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 78 and the Clark County Marine Patrol.
Class is from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The cost is $10 per boater.
To register, call 360-256-2991 or 503-799-5250.
Sunrise center finally open
ASHFORD —Sunrise Visitor Center in Mount Rainier National Park has opened for the season. The road to Sunrise opened two weeks ago.
“Visitors will have the opportunity to see for themselves massive amounts of snow, due to near-record snowfall this winter,’’ said Mary Kay Nelson, executive director of Visit Rainier.
Drivers on the highway over Chinook Pass will travel through vertical walls of snow.
State to check boats for invasives
OLYMPIA — State wildlife officers will be stopping boaters intermittently to conduct checks of boats, trailers and gear for aquatic invasive species.
The annual check stations and emphasis patrols will continue through boating season. The aim is to keep tiny zebra mussels, quagga mussels and other non-native species out of Washington waters.
Officers have checked 20 vessels this year with aquatic invasive species attached, said Sgt. Carl Klein.
They also caught one motorist with a stolen boat.
The invasive mussels are already found in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California.
Zebra and quagga mussels are native to the Caspian Sea. They entered the Great Lakes in the mid-1980s in ship ballast water.
They are easily transported because they can live out of water for up to a month.
