I wonder how long it'll take for them to get down river & into U.L. Right now D.C. is off my list for taking my boat. I'm not sure about decontamination being all that effective. I'd like to hope it was poor decontamination and not just some ignorant, selfish S.O.B. that got them introduced there.
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Go there in the summer and look at the number of wakeboard boats. A lot of those boats were at Powell the week before.
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Their probably already there, if not it's just a matter of time. people just don't
clean their boats good enough or they lie about where they have been. the dwr guys don't inspect good enough. before long they will be every where, look at powell, they kept them out for quite a while and they had a lot inspecting in place, but someone didn't do their job either the boater or dwr guys.
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[#0000FF]Amazing. They find larvae in Deer Creek...but no adults. At Powell they had "super" restrictions on launching and had not found even any larvae. But suddenly they find there is a large established population of adult mussels all over the lake.
As you said...somebody blew it.
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I am going down to Wahweep on the 25th as part of a group that Wayne is putting together to look at the mussel problem at Powell and I would imagine the rest of the state. I am looking forward to seeing what some of the suggestions are going to be !!
As stated here before, one problem that has to be addressed will be the cleaning of internal tanks, both live wells and bladders on ski/wake boats. I have live wells on my boat and I have no problem putting a 1/2 cup of bleach in them while full and letting them slosh around till I get home. I doubt that the ski/wake board crowd will be so accommodating. I also do not know how bleach will affect the neoprene that most of the bladders are made of. So that will be an interesting discussion.
Quagga's in Utah Lake will be a disaster .
[#0000FF]I'm sure a lot of us will be interested in the proposals and findings of the study group.
One thought I have had recently is that perhaps our cooler water reservoirs...like the ones that have tested positive for larvae but have not developed adult populations...might not be hospitable to permanent colonization. Cool waters with extreme seasonal drawdowns can't be good for the nasty little buggers. A review of the decontamination procedures...with drying for only 7 days in summer...might suggest that our annual cycles are not very mussel friendly. Summer is when the rapidly receding water will expose any new adults adhering to rocks or other objects on the bottom.
Not suggesting it is a complete deterrent but it can slow them down. Like putting barbed wire on the bannister to keep Grandma from sliding down. Won't stop her if she is determined, but...you get the idea.
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Too bad we can't have shell crackers.
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I would be curious to know how they can find veligers in places like Electric Lake and never find any adults. It would seem that in order to find veligers concentrated enough to show up in their testing that there would have to be a fairly large population of adult mussels. Did they actually have a false positive on their tests in Electric Lake?
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I read somewhere that it probably was a false positive at Electric Lake. Also that they suspected that from the start, but took the prudent step of acting like it was real. Can't blame them.
Here's hoping that lakes north of Dixie can't sustain the miserable pests.
As to the power squadron being the transport vector - have you ever seen any that were considerate of anything but their own wants?
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My understanding is the tests were too sensitive and yielded false positives at both Electric Lake and Sand Hollow.
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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga_mussel
It's an interesting read on the Quagga. So I guess a lake in Colorado has confirmed some at one point and they are now stocking Redear sunfish and over 10 years yellow perch started eating them. But the fish end up with a lot of contaminants from eating them. But the stupid things are quick to adapt to different environments.
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I would not hold my breath on the environment in Utah being inhospitable to these little buggers. The Great Lakes have greater extremes in temp than we do and that has not stopped them. One thing that might be a deterrent would be the salinity of our waters, but ????? I have been reading some of the literature over the years and so far have not seen anything that will take them out on a large scale. There is a bacteria that has been developed that has about a 90% kill rate, but cost is a major factor there.
Does anyone know the effect of bleach on neoprene ???
That's a shame. I'd be cool with stocking a few extra craptons of redears and/or perch into either DC or UL, but if eating quaggas contaminates them and makes them unsafe to eat, that kind of defeats the purpose as far as I'm concerned.
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[quote RockyRaab]I read somewhere that it probably was a false positive at Electric Lake. Also that they suspected that from the start, but took the prudent step of acting like it was real. Can't blame them.
Here's hoping that lakes north of Dixie can't sustain the miserable pests.
As to the power squadron being the transport vector - have you ever seen any that were considerate of anything but their own wants?[/quote]
Yup, have seen plenty of considerate power squadron, and raised two sons to be the same way with their power boats . You are painting with some pretty broad strokes.
What worries me just as much as the power squadron is the fisherman that fish Lake Powell one week ,and Strawberry or wherever the next . How considerate do you think ALL of them are.
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Im not gonna say that anybody is going to do anthing on purpose but I can drain my livewell and it will be dry in a day, but the balast's in wakeboard boats could stay moist for easily 3-4 days. That has to give the mussels a better chance at survival. That's why I think they need to be outlawed.
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Soft surf/wake boat tanks often don't completely empty. The pumps leave at least 1/4" of water in the bottom that could stay there indefinitely.
How long the mussels could live in that environment, I do not know.
Banning Surf/wake boat ballast tanks isn't going to happen so we are going to have to find a solution that ensures decontamination.
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I have no idea how well Quagga's are able to adapt to high silt waters like Utah Lake. And I am sure it will raise hell on all of the irrigation infrastructure if they do make it into Utah Lake. However look on the bright side. The Quagga are filter feeders and they clear the water. We may never figure out how to remove enough carp to allow that lake to heal back to it's natural pre carp status. However maybe these pesky little buggers can filter enough to make a difference. Too bad they won't kill the carp in the process.
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Everything seems to have plusses and minuses. If the quaggas do get into U.L. and they do filter out enough "guck" to begin clearing up the water, won't that aid the northern pike? Seeing as how they are primarily sight feeders, clearer water oughta help the da---- things find junies to eat a lot easier.
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I'm delighted you've raised your sons to be considerate boaters, up2nogood. Kudos to you all. But you are very much in the minority, in my experience.
I wonder if there isn't some cheap substance that could be poured into tanks and bilges that would kill veligers? Bleach? It seems to stop the spread of whirling disease on rivers when anglers soak their boots in a bleach solution.
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Lake Eerie was a high silt lake and now it is experiencing some of the clearest water it has ever had because of the quagga. And yes, the Great Lakes have a very wide temperature range and the quagga is alive and well there. They clog up everything.
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