CLARK FORK - Flowering rush hasn't been designated as an aquatic invasive species in Idaho yet, but that hasn't stopped resource officials from trying to find a way to nip it in the bud.

The exotic plant can form dense stands which can interfere with recreation, crowd out native plants and in turn harm fish and wildlife.

Patches of the flowering rush have been discovered in the Clark Fork River and slack sections of Lake Pend Oreille, prompting officials to begin testing methods of getting rid of it, such as pulling it by hand or burning it when the plants are exposed during the water is drawn down to winter pool.

While burning does not appear to show a lot of promise in getting at the subsurface rhizomes, hand pulling could prove effective here. Bonner County's Aquatic Invasive Species Task Force, the Bonner Soil & Water Conservation District, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are working a number of test plots to verify the effectiveness of hand pulling.

"Hand pulling does work if you can get all of it," Kate Wilson, chair of the county's invasive species task force, said on Friday. "It breaks really, really easy."

Representatives from ISDA, the corps and the soil district worked plots at the Clark Fork Driftyard on Thursday. The volunteers plunged their hands into the mud and meticulously extracted rhizomes and root pieces so they could be piled up and hauled away.

Wilson said a patch of flowering rush has been yanked from the Pack River Flats and volunteers plan to go after more of the plants at Kootenai Bay once the mud firms up a little more.

Erin Mader, an ISDA aquatic plant specialist for the Panhandle, said flowering rush is abundant in Montana's Flathead Lake and has migrated into Idaho via the Clark Fork River.

Wilson said the county is lobbying for flowering rush to be added to Idaho's noxious weed list, which would free up state funding for controlling it.

"We couldn't get state funding to do anything with it if we wanted to because it's not on that list and that's the criteria. It has to be on that list," she said. "We're kind of on our own there."