SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, July 27, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A consortium of wildlife officials spent the Pioneer Day weekend attacking invasive quagga mussels which can clog waterlines and deplete the food supplies of fish.
More than 14,000 boats were inspected for the pesky quagga mussels in a coordinated effort by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah State Parks, Arizona
Game and Fish Department and the National Park Service, the DWR said in a press release.
Aquatic Invasive Species technicians inspected 14,885 boats and performed 355 decontaminations from Friday to Monday, the DWR said.
Of those total numbers, 2,292 of the boat inspections and 75 of the decontaminations took place at inspection stations in the Lake Powell area. Those numbers surpassed last year’s Pioneer Day weekend effort, where 12,197 inspections were performed statewide, and 252 boats were decontaminated.
The species is targeted because:
- They plug water lines, even lines that are large in diameter.
- If they get into water delivery systems in Utah, it will cost millions of dollars annually to remove them and keep the pipes free, which can result in higher utility bills.
- They remove plankton from the water, which hurts fish species in Utah.
- Mussels get into your boat’s engine cooling system. Once they do, they’ll foul the system and damage the engine.
- When mussels die in large numbers, they stink and the sharp shells of dead mussels also cut your feet as you walk along the beaches.
