Law gives state agency say in how invasive mussels are handled
By Central Valley Business Times
A new law is letting the California Department of Fish and Game to continue an aggressive strategy to combat the spread of quagga and zebra mussels in state waterways.
“If we didn’t allow the DFG to continue with this aggressive control strategy, dreissenid mussels will colonize with alarming speed and cause major harm to our state waterways,” says state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, the author of the measure.
Dreissenid mussels attach to and rapidly colonize boat hulls, piers and water intake pipes. They reproduce quickly and in huge numbers. They have been found in the Colorado River system and in aqueducts, waterways and reservoirs in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Imperial and San Benito Counties.
According to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, quagga mussels have the potential of collapsing entire food webs. The mussels are filter feeders that “remove food and nutrients from the water column very efficiently, leaving less or nothing for native aquatic species” and they “have no natural predators in North America.”