Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, is right that Kansas needs to get serious about containing the spread of zebra mussels. The invasive species, which can hitch a ride on the outside of boats or in live wells and bilges, already infests Cheney and Perry reservoirs and El Dorado Lake, threatening to clog municipal water pipes.
The city of Wichita, which depends heavily on Cheney as a water source, is looking at a zebra mussel control project that could cost $500,000 to start and $270,000 annually to operate.
Those serious costs to taxpayers explain why the current voluntary cleanup guidelines aren’t tough enough. Journey’s bill would impose fines of up to $6,000 on boaters, fishermen and other recreational water users who don’t follow the rules for cleaning boats.
This is a good step, as long as the fines are backed up with expanded public education and enforcement.
26 Comments
Just dump a few hundred crawdads in Cheney, they eat the zebra mussels, so do muskrats. Plus, besides clogging water pipes, I don’t see that they cause much of a problem, the zebra mussels clean the pollution out of murkey waters, and they make water more clear. We could use that in our river, our river has never been clear, probably from all the run off from cow pastures and meat packing plants.
Zebra Mussels contamination needs to be prevently pro-actively, not after exposure.
Current methods to decontaminate include the use of iodine, hypochlorite, phenol solutions and dessication (drying out over time.)
Proactive solutions would be:
– requiring all marine surfaces be of a low friction nature (synthetic coatings) where the mussels cannot attach themselves.
– aggressive inspection of boats, materials and equipment prior to local water exposure
– use of molluscicides
– Public Education
– Bio-remediation (killing of larvae through biotoxins that is harmless to other species)
– Electromagnetic equipment to prevent calcification surfaces from forming (expensive)
The perfect solution isn’t available, but a combination of education, marine inspection of boats/equipment, prevention and effective post exposure techniques should keep the mussels under control.
“needs to be prevently” = “needs to be prevented”
As usual, a day late and a dollar short. It’s too bad they ignored us for so long.
I’m surprised we don’t see Huelskamp and the rest saying “Zebra mussels are in nature; they cannot be a problem”
I’ve been complaining about these. You all with your fancy power boats and jets skis with no brains to clean up after yourselves have done it now. Wash your hulls dammit! I love the body part slicing roulette part of zebra mussels.
BalckRhino – have you talked to any biologists about this. They heartily disagree with you about zebras.
Just how big are these Zebra mussels? Can they be seen easily with the naked eye?
Yes – but they are fairly small. And sharp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_mussel
They’re not very big but seem to like to be really close together so make a big bunch of themselves. And, boy they are razor sharp! No wading without shoes on!
If you like to fish, you should support all measures to restrict zebra mussel infestation.
I’m originally from ElDorado and used to care much for my lake. Fishing was great and I could feel free to let my kids swim with few worries. Now the fish are going away and you always end up with someone getting sliced and diced. I used to just be that the jet skis would scare the fish, now they aid in killing them off.
it used to be…
Pleefer – I have had a number of discussions with Wildlife and Parks biologists where they lament the lack of action by the State and the ignorant attitude of those like BlackRhino above. Like I said – too little too late. AS USUAL.
Ben
The WIKI article that you posted says clearly that crayfish DO eat lots and lots of Zebra Mussles.
It also says that there are positives and negatives involved.
Some fish population will increase, like small mouth bass, which like cleaner water.
Yes, crawdads do eat them. That does not make them good to have in waters to which they are not native. I don’t know that crawdads would do well in our climate.
Paul – talked to any biologists who work in Kansas water management about this?
I haven’t been there for years, but there used to be a restaurant in Rulo, Nebraska (lowest southeast corner of the state, overlooking the Missouri River). The specialty of the house was Carp!
That’s right! The most garbage fish in the water, and this place made it taste like lobster. The place was packed to the gills every Friday and Saturday night (it didn’t look like much more than a local small-town tavern from the outside) but people drove for hours from Lincoln, from Omaha, from St. Joe, from KC… to eat carp!
So somebody simply needs to come up with a decent recipe for Zebra Mussels. Seems like a garlic/butter sauce might work. Or a horseraddish dipping sauce mixed with salsa or something. 20 bucks a plate!
Call the place Mussel Beach!
Within five years people will be griping about a shortage of zebra mussels.
Ironic, isn’t it? How the Cons of this forum responded to this thread with all sorts of suggestions of how governmental agencies should do something.
And here I am, a dreaded “liberal” with the free-market solution.
I’ll eat some damn zebra mussels, somebody serve em up.
Help yourself BlackRhino. Of course, these are mostly shell as you know.
I shouldn’t think this would be all that difficult to deal with.
Have a wash lane or two at each boat ramp. Heat the water with solar energy and pump it high pressure on stored wind/solar energy.
It will take a few to make a meal. Do you call this labor intensive?
I’m sure somebody can think of a use for them, they can’t be totally useless mussels.
You’re not going to make a meal out of Zebra Mussels as they are too small (size of a human hair to less than an inch maximum size.)
Besides, they have been known to carry Botulism.
BuckCorvus,
Mussels in general purify water by filtering and are nature’s best in purification.
I suppose if one had a sludge pond that didn’t kill off the mussels, they could be used to filter out the undesirable elements.
Good luck with that though as the mussels calcification deposits cause as much problem as the original contaminant.
Zebra mussels can help filter sewage into drinking water. Their shells can also be processed into top grade fertilizer. The water treatment plants should use some zebra mussels.
“The water treatment plants should use some zebra mussels.”
Interesting concept; however pumping etc gats very impeded. I know the Wichita sewage treatment center has had problems with snails clogging things.
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[...] WE Blog » The Wichita Eagle Editorial Department Blog wrote an interesting post today on Get serious about zebra mussel threatHere’s a quick excerptGet serious about zebra mussel threat Posted6:00 a.m. Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, is right that Kansas needs to get serious about containing the spread of zebra mussels. The invasive species, which can hitch a ride on the outside of boats or in live wells and bilges, already infests Cheney and Perry reservoirs and El Dorado Lake, threatening to clog municipal water pipes. The city of Wichita, which depends heavily on Cheney as a water source, is looking at a zebra mussel control project t [...]
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