Stopping the quagga muscle in its tracks

Once invasive species moves in it is impossible to move out

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Like a scary dream that comes back to haunt you, so are the quagga mussels, which pose a growing and permanent menace to fish and game officials up and down the Colorado River south of Lake Mead because once they're here, there's no way of getting rid of them.

It all started Jan. 6 when a Las Vegas Boat Harbor employee spotted what looked like a zebra mussel on a submerged anchoring cable.

As it turned out, it was a quagga mussel, a kin of the zebra mussel, that has set off a maelstrom of activity linked to learning how bad the infestation is while the nuisance mollusk simultaneously spreads like wildfire through the Colorado River system south of Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.

From Jan. 6-21, a span of barely two weeks, the quagga mussel was discovered as far north as Callville Bay and as far south as the Central Arizona Project's intake on Lake Havasu at Parker Dam -- a distance greater than 165 river miles.

Between those places, there were discoveries at the Nevada Intake to Hoover Dam, just below Hoover Dam; at Katherine's Landing 63 miles south; at the Whitsett Intake to the California Aqueduct north of Parker Dam on the California side of Lake Havasu; and on Grass Island in Lake Havasu, barely three miles from the London Bridge.

"The Arizona Game and Fish Department, the Central Arizona Project and the Salt River Project have set up monitoring stations to try to stop or at least slow the speed of these pests on our inland waterways," AGF program manager Zen Mocarski said at a mussel media update session Jan. 26 at Lake Mead. "It's critical that a number of agencies work together. We're still in the infancy of discovering this, so a lot of things can happen over the next few weeks."

On Jan. 31, the 100th Meridian Initiative, a consortium of scientists, biologists, wildlife officials and park personnel, met in Las Vegas to discuss what they could do to keep the mollusk in check.

The main focus coming out of that meeting was two things: first that the group would be a "clearinghouse" of information for the public, and, second, that it would expand its efforts toward public education of the problem.

While the group circles its wagons to stave off the multiplying mollusks, boats are being launched -- some of them unknowingly carrying the nuisance's microscopic larvae -- to unspoiled waters, which spreads the problem unless preventative measures are taken.

"There are a number of ways these things can spread, especially on anything that stays wet," Mocarski said. "If something gets wet, it has the potential to spread. It's critical that people get their boats clean."

However, during a check Feb. 3 of the Lake Havasu Marina -- just three miles from Grass Island where a quagga mussel was found Jan. 19 -- there was one sign warning of zebra mussels on a launch ramp post, but there were no warning posters, no "Zap the Zebra" brochures printed by the 100th Meridian Initiative, or any other materials in the fuel dock building proclaiming that there was a problem.

"We wipe down our boat when we come out of the water," said Joe Egilske of Victorville, Calif., as his wife, Cindy, backed their houseboat down the launch ramp. "If you want to wash down your boat, people drive into town and wash them at the car wash."

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of public and private launch ramps and docks along this 165-plus-mile stretch of the Colorado River, which leaves any kind of enforcement program dead in the water.

"This is not just a Lake Mead issue, it's a regional issue," said Gary Warshefski, deputy superintendent for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. "How do you minimize the spread of mussels through whatever program you set up? Are we going to put people in jail if they fail to check their boats or don't check them thorough enough if they have quagga mussels on them?

"When you look at the amount of access points to the lakes, Havasu is a more difficult problem. At Lake Mead, there's one jurisdiction, the National Park Service. At Lake Havasu, there are several jurisdictions -- the California Fish and Game, the Arizona Game and Fish, the Bureau of Reclamation (for Parker Dam) -- and then there are the many private property owners, which is what makes the situation challenging for all of us."

A check of one park and one subdivision in Needles, Calif., with Colorado River access points out the kind of problem Warshefski spoke about.

Both Jack Smith Park and the Colorado Shores home sites have uncontrolled launch ramps, one accessible to the public and one accessible only to property owner association members, where boats and watercraft can set sail at any time, under any conditions and without being checked for quagga mussels.

There were no quagga or zebra mussel warning signs at either location, which typically illustrate what needs to be done to prevent the mollusks' spread.

Neither the states of Nevada or Arizona, nor any federal agency in either state, has set up an inspection program other than a voluntary check by boat and watercraft owners. However, California does have CFG rangers at three agricultural inspection stations.

The stations at Yermo on Interstate 15, at Needles on Interstate 40, and at Vidal Junction, near Blythe, on Interstate 10, are manned 24/7, however, Colorado River crossings from Arizona to California on Interstate 8 at Yuma and on the highway at Parker, Ariz., as well as the bridge linking Laughlin to Bullhead City, Ariz., are left unguarded.

The whole mussel mess started more than 20 years ago in the Great Lakes region and has caused serious problems as mussel populations spread like a virus in the waterways of nearly every state east of the Mississippi River.

Despite the pervasiveness of the problem there, according to Warshefski, "there are no mandatory inspection programs back East, as far as I'm aware of."

What makes the mussel problem even more vexing to federal, state and local officials is that Congress passed the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990, which "mandates development and implementation of a comprehensive national program to prevent and respond to problems caused by the unintentional introduction of nonindigenous aquatic species into the waters of the United States."

"We've got a serious challenge before us, but at this point we don't know the extent of that challenge," National Park Service public information officer Julian Rhinehart said after the 100th Meridian meeting.