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PAGE, Ariz. — Of all the lakes in Utah, Lake Powell gets the most boaters every year. But there's something in Lake Powell that has wildlife biologists concerned: quagga mussels.
More than 30 divers from several agencies spent the day Tuesday at the Wahweap Marina looking on boats, docks, pipes — you name it — trying to find and get rid of the tiny mussels before they become a big problem.
"The idea is to sweep through these marinas with a big effort and remove any mussels we can find," aquatic biologist Mark Anderson said. "Whatever somebody might value at Lake Powell, these mussels are a threat to it."
Lake Powell is one of four Utah lakes affected by quagga mussels — the others being Sand Hollow Reservoir, Electric Lake and Red Fleet Reservoir. Quaggas can damage boats, affect other aquatic life and wreck infrastructure.
"We don't want to get them in our water delivery systems. They have a tendency to pile up on each other, colonize on each other, to the point where they can close off large pipes," said Jordan Nielson, aquatic invasive species coordinator with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Once mussels are in a body of water they multiply fast and clump together in colonies.
"They can build up densities of 300,000 in a square meter," Anderson said. "Just unbelievable numbers."
"They can produce up to 40,000 of the baby mussels we call ‘velagers' each time that they breed, and they can breed several times a year," Nielson said.
That is why getting rid of as many as possible is so important.
"When they move into somewhere and they attach themselves to our pipes and our dams and our boats, we're not prepared for it," Anderson said. "None of our facilities are ready for this kind of fouling, and so it's real expensive for us to retrofit all of our stuff."
So, with the thorough inspection requirements the DWR has set up, how did quaggas get in Lake Powell in the first place? Most likely by boat, but officials there think boaters go in after hours or lie to the gate attendant about where their boat has been and don't get a proper inspection.
