By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
3-5-09

Inyo County is lucky in that it has yet to feel the devastating economic effects of quagga and zebra mussels, but keeping the dangerous invasive species out of local waters will take a team effort.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power provided the Inyo County Board of Supervisors with a presentation, video and workshop about quagga mussels and boat inspections for the upcoming Southern Inyo Early Opener this weekend.
“This is a very serious issue that we have to deal with before we see drastic consequences,” said LADWP Watershed Resources Manager Brian Tillemans. “We cannot afford to be complacent. We must be proactive now to minimize the risk of infestation.”
Tillemans said the department doesn’t want to restrict access to local waters or prohibit any kind of recreation, but to avoid a costly quagga invasion, every agency with a stake in local lakes will have to help with boat inspections and public awareness campaigns as the fishing season approaches.

By 2007 the mussels arrived in the West, infesting Lake Mead and making their way down the Colorado River into the Metropolitan Water District’s aqueduct, which brought them all the way into Southern California.
The mussels lay more than one million eggs a year and live for 4-5 years, depending on the temperature of the water. In the Southwest, quaggas have found ideal elements for long reproductive cycles and even longer lives, making them just as prevalent here as they are in waters they have inhabited for more than a decade.
The mussels tend to eat copious amounts of plankton that are generally a staple food source for fish. This, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission says, has led to declining fish populations in the Great Lakes.
In addition to that, utilities, recreators, local governments and citizens must watch for the invasive bivalves which have found a comfortable home and breeding ground inside of pipes and infrastructure for dams and marinas.
“We have a lot of mussels in the Southern California area, and some utilities have even closed access to their base reservoirs due to the threat,” Tillemans said. “We don’t want to close access to any facilities, but we do wan’t to deal with this risk.”
The LADWP and Department of Fish and Game began their quagga and zebra mussel public awareness campaign at the beginning of the 2008 fishing season. In addition to leaflets passed out to anglers explaining the hazard of the invasive species, the LADWP conducted mandatory boat inspections of vessels before they could be launched into Crowley Lake.
With the Southern Inyo Early Opener kicking off the beginning of the fishing season near Lone Pine on Saturday, Tillemans asked the board for county support for boat inspections at Diaz Lake this weekend.
Deputy County Administrator Chuck Hamilton said he already has staff prepared to work part-time with the department to aid in those inspections.
Hamilton will be returning to the board with a workshop next week to discuss the possibility of ongoing county aid in boat inspections throughout the fishing season. However, with a hiring freeze in effect and the local government doing all it can to tighten its belt in tough financial times, it is unclear if the county will be able to dedicate staff members to consistent inspections.
Tillemans said that if the county and LADWP cannot come up with enough manpower to conduct regular inspections, the department may have to consider limiting access to some local boat ramps to days when inspections can be conducted.
Those heading to Diaz this weekend should expect a 10- to 15-minute delay for the boat inspection. If the vessel has been operating in infested waters within the past 10 days, it will be turned away.
Any boat that is cleared to enter local waters will be given a tag that stays in place until the boat is launched again. If that vessel comes back to uninfested waters before that tag is removed, it will be allowed to bypass the inspection.