I”ll start with congratulating the Record-Bee on providing press coverage of the threat to Clear Lake from the potential invasion of quagga mussels. While the Record-Bee focused on tourism, the mussels would severely impact Lake County and it”s economy in many ways.
For example, all water intakes on the lake would probably have to be retrofitted with chemical injectors (as they were on the Great Lakes) just to keep them from being plugged by the mussels. The environmental impact would be devastating, the lake would change forever. Desired fish species would be wiped out, birds would be impacted.
The word is spreading, no one wants mussels. Mussels are bad news.
So what did the Record-Bee do? You published a headline saying, “Costly freshwater mussel may be in lake” in your May 23 paper. Wow, that is very irresponsible. I realize your reporter heard Terry Knight mention at the Board of Supervisors meeting that due to recent large bass tournaments we may already have mussels, but hopefully we do not.
Terry handled the information very responsibly in his column in the same paper, so why not put as much thought into the headline? Do you realize the Clear Lake Advisory Committee (CLAS) briefed the BOS on these mussels three years ago? And, for several years now, there has been county sponsored monitoring on the lake to look for any signs of the mussels. So far there has been no sign of mussels.
Our lake gets enough bad press without our own newspaper leading the parade. How about a headline like: “County vows to keep mussels from Clear Lake?” I know you have to sell papers, but when it comes to headlines you have to get it right.
Ed Calkins
Chairman CLAS
Kelseyville
