US, Canadian leaders seek help on mussels
Sunday, July 19, 2009 12:45 AM PDT
BOISE (AP) — Members of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region have approved sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Canadian Minister of Fisheries Gail Shea asking for more aggressive measures to contain invasive quagga and zebra mussels once they’ve entered a waterway.
The letter says it’s ‘’absolutely critical’’ that authorities in both nations work to contain and decontaminate boats exiting Lake Mead in Nevada and other waters infested with the mussels.
The mussels reproduce and spread rapidly, clogging machinery and water pipes and destroying aquatic ecosystems.
‘’Whenever you can control an invader closest to the contaminated area, you eliminate the spider-web effect and trying to guess where they go,’’ Idaho state Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, told The Spokesman-Review.
Anderson helped lead a session on Wednesday examining the issue at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region gathering in Boise.
The group is a private and public partnership of governments and businesses from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and the Yukon Territory.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered a quarantine of Lake Mead in 2007 when the mussels were found there, said Paul Heimowitz, aquatic invasive species coordinator for the agency in Portland.
‘’The answer was they have, some days, thousands of boats exiting Lake Mead,’’ he said. ‘’It was unfeasible. It was not a very comforting answer.’’
Lake Mead spreads into Arizona, and Heimowitz told the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region that running a quarantine would require more money and shutting down most of the national parks in the West to shift resources.
But Anderson said the cost could also be great if the mussels spread and become established. In Idaho, the annual cost would be $90 million to maintain dams, irrigation equipment and other operations if the mussels spread.
