Pontoon & Deck Boat

Mussel Mass WHAT ONE COMPANY IS DOING TO STEM THE TIDE OF ZEBRA MUSSEL INFESTATION By Trevor Mason By Trevor Mason If you do much driving in the summer months, especially across state lines, you've no doubt seen the inspection stations admonishing boaters to stop to have their vessels looked at. The point of these sta- tions is to stop the spread of invasive species from one part of the country into another. Obviously, some species have feet or wings and can do it on their own, but oftentimes, waterborne animals like to hitch a ride on our boats. That's especially true of mus- sels, barnacles, and other stationary water species. One such variety, the zebra mussel, is especially pernicious and causes trouble, not only to a per- sonal watercraft, but to the surround- ing ecosystem. So what makes them so bad and how can we stop them? Zebra mussels get their name from the striped pattern on their shells and are small, usually about the size of a fingernail, but can grow to maximum of two inches. Originally native to the Caspian Sea region of Asia, some specimens were transported to the Great Lakes region in 1985 or 1986. By 1990 their numbers had spread so precipitously that all of the Great Lakes were infested, and today many waterways throughout the United States (even reaching as far as the southwest and southeast) and parts of Canada have become homes for the creatures. FAR AND WIDE A single mussel can lay up to five million eggs in its five-year lifetime, about 100,000 of which will reach adulthood. The zebra mussel's main tendency is to congregate on hard surfaces in gigantic, dense colonies that can have tens of thousands of individual mussels per square yard. It's estimated that there are 10 trillion quagga (a closely related species) and zebra mussels in the Great Lakes alone. The effects of such high vol- umes of mussels are manifold. First, unlike other species of mussel, they have no problem attaching to and smothering the native mussel popula- tion. Second, they filter up to a liter of water per day to eat plankton, their food. While this does increase the clarity of the water for us to enjoy, the side effect is that it denies that food to the rest of the animals in that body of water, such as fish and other mol- lusks, which upsets the balance of the local ecosystem. Third, they ac- cumulate contaminants in their tis- sues to a level up to 300,000 times higher than the rest of the ecosys- tem, which exposes other wild- life (and humans!) to greater-than- normal levels of contaminants. Finally, their sheer numbers clog up pipes, intakes, and cooling systems, which not only affects boats, but also facili- ties such as water treatment plants. BILLIONS SPENT If it sounds like they're a nearly insurmountable problem, it's because they are. Infestations of zebra mussels have cost businesses and communi- ties an estimated $5 billion since their introduction to North America, with power companies alone accounting for over $3 billion. According to the Center for Invasive Spe- cies Research at the University of Califor- nia, Riverside, the cost to manage the zebra mussel population in the Great Lakes alone surpasses $500 million a year, while a more conservative study places the cost at $267 million for electric-generation and water-treatment facilities in the entire United States from 1989 through 2004. Either way, they're a www.pdbmagazine.com PDB Pontoon & Deck Boat June 2016 40

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