LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A boat abandoned at a local boat repair business for more than four years will take on an important new role in Lake County’s efforts to protect local water bodies from the threat posed by invasive quagga and zebra mussels.
When the Lake County Department of Water Resources was offered a donation of an abandoned older model Bayliner pleasure boat, it presented an opportunity to use it as an important educational tool in Lake County’s Invasive Species Inspection Program.
On July 5, the boat was launched into the waters of Nevada’s Lake Mead, where invasive quagga mussels first were discovered in 2007, and it will remain in the infested waters for more than four months to ensure mussels at all life stages are present on the vessel.
The contaminated boat will then be removed from Lake Mead, allowed to dry, and covered with a protective spray coating that will hold the dead mussels onto the boat. This process ensures the mussels are dead and, thus, pose no subsequent risk.
Upon its return to Lake County, the contaminated boat will become an important hands-on tool to train mussel inspectors in Lake County as well as across Northern California.
“This boat will be an extremely useful tool in our training program,” said Lake County’s Water Resources Director Scott De Leon. “A boat infested with actual mussels will give screeners and inspectors a real-world understanding of exactly what they are looking for when they do an inspection.”
His department has worked collaboratively with the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG), Nevada Department of Wildlife, and California Department of Food and Agriculture, which operates the state’s Border Protection Stations, to ensure all proper permits are in place to facilitate the transport.
The department also is working with DFG to ensure the boat also is available for regional training courses for inspectors involved in other mussel inspection programs across Northern California.
Researchers at UNLV, who have been monitoring levels of invasive quagga mussels in Lake Mead, recently reported an estimated 1.5 trillion adult quagga mussels and 320 trillion baby quagga mussels are alive in Lake Mead, which is approximately 10 times the level in 2007 and evidence of the speed with which an infestation can spread.
Dreissenid mussels, which include the small quagga mussel and the even-smaller zebra mussel, are tiny invasive mussels that can be spread unknowingly from one water body to another on boats and equipment with devastating effects to lakes, boats, docks, water intake equipment, fisheries, and beaches.
Just a few simple steps can prevent the spread and keep Lake County waters mussel-free – clean, drain, and dry all boats and equipment after exiting any water body. Be sure to allow boats to remain dry on a trailer for one full week prior to launching into another water body.
For more information about preventing the spread, visit www.nomussels.com , call the Lake County Mussel Hotline at 707-263-2556, or contact the Lake County Department of Water Resources at 707-263-2344.