Just out of curiosity and as food for thought, can anyone tell me what is being done in the waters below Deer Creek to avoid spreading AIS?
How fast do mussels spread? Is a dam any deterrent to downstream movement of the plankton sized baby mussels?
Are those fishing the Provo now decontamination their equipment?
And the big question is Utah Lake. Are those of you boating there decontaminating the same as if you were in Deer Creek before you take your boat on the next water?
Or is it safe to wait until the Provo and Utah Lake are officially declared contaminated with mussels before setting up decontamination stations there too?
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[#0000FF]The good news is that all tests subsequent to the one last fall...that found 5 vilegers...have been negative. And diving surveys have not revealed any adults anywhere in the lake.
In the absence of finding a proven infestation it is unlikely to see too much time and money spent on downstream protection.
This same scenario has played out on at least a couple of other Utah reservoirs and we can only hope that the first findings will be the only findings.
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I'm just curious as to how big of sample was taken when the vilegers were found. Kinda seems like a lucky needle in the haystack to find those little antagonists.
humpy
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I had a decently long conversation with DNR last time I was at Deer Creek about this topic.
The veliger DNA was found in one sample of many taken in the lake late last year. The veligers were dead when sampled.
Since that time, no other test has found veligers in Deer Creek -- alive or dead. And as TD said, no adults have been found.
One would suspect with the water decline over the summer, if there were a reproducing population, some would have been found on the shoreline.
None have.
Three years of consecutive negative testing is required to remove DC from the naughty list. However DNR is worried the lake will be infected anyway.
Even with all the heightened scrutiny, the DNR officer I spoke to said he stopped a wake boat ON THE RAMP from launching the Monday after it had been on Lake Powell over the weekend.
The Power Squadron is a huge problem.
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thanks for the replies. It is good to hear that subsequent testing has been negative. I hope that it stays that way.
But it probably is only a matter of time before those that don't care spread this problem to many other places.
Now if we could only get everyone, including the power squadron, to treat their equipment like every water is contaminated, we might slow the progression of this stuff down. The utopian dream.... [crazy]
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I drove past Deer Cr about an hour ago, coming home from Strawberry. There were grundles of wake boats out there even on a Thursday, and I was thinking the same thing as I drove past, that a lot of those people probably don't care at all about mussels. I just hope they in fact aren't established in Deer Creek.
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If only we could find a species of mussel that's attracted to the sound wave forms generated by blasting Def Leppard from a marine audio system. Last time I was at Pineview some idiot turned his system up to full blast playing "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and slowly drove a loop all around the shoreline of the wakeless arm. Sure looked like intentional antagonism to me....I definitely wouldn't cry if his motor got clogged up with mussels.
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