State uses more muscle against mussels
Central Valley Business Times
09/26/2011
A new law is letting the California Department of Fish and Game to continue an aggressive strategy to combat the spread of quagga and zebra mussels in state waterways.
“If we didn’t allow the DFG to continue with this aggressive control strategy, dreissenid mussels will colonize with alarming speed and cause major harm to our state waterways,” says state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, the author of the measure.
Dreissenid mussels attach to and rapidly colonize boat hulls, piers and water intake pipes. They reproduce quickly and in huge numbers. They have been found in the Colorado River system and in aqueducts, waterways and reservoirs in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial and San Benito Counties.
According to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, quagga mussels have the potential of collapsing entire food webs. The mussels are filter feeders that “remove food and nutrients from the water column very efficiently, leaving less or nothing for native aquatic species” and they “have no natural predators in North America.”
Dreissenid mussels cause economic troubles when they clog water intake pipes, hurting municipal water supply operators, agricultural irrigation and intake valves for hydroelectric power facilities, which are costly to clean. According to the Center for Invasive Species Research at the University of California, Riverside, the cost of managing a zebra mussel infestation in the Great Lakes alone now exceeds $500 million a year.
“Prevention, early detection and rapid response are the most cost effective solutions to combat the spread of an invasive species like the dreissenid mussel,” says Mr. Huff.
The new law gives the DFG continued authority to conduct inspections and order disinfections, closures and quarantines if necessary to prevent the spread of the invasive species. It also requires water supply operators to implement plans to prevent and control infestations.
