LAKE COUNTY ? The Board of Supervisors sought input from staff at its meeting Tuesday on how to prevent the invasive quagga mussel species from making its way to Clear Lake.
After more than three hours of discussion that included a presentation by Deputy Director of Water Resources Pam Francis and feedback from citizens, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion to implement 13 strategies to combat the quagga.
The strategies include decontamination stations located strategically at the four main routes into the county, as proposed by Supervisor Anthony Farrington.
In addition, stickers good for a short period of time ? either monthly or weekly ? will be required on boats so that law enforcement can easily identify when an out-of-county boat has undergone decontamination.
Also required will be an affidavit program, signage notifying boats they need to access a decontamination station, required decontamination for all bass tournament boats and increased educational efforts including updated brochures and mailings to lakeshore property owners.
A new task force was established to further discuss the strategies, which Farrington said would be implemented “ideally within 30 to 60 days.”
That force will include members from the Chamber of Commerce and Supervisor Jeff Smith and Supervisor Rob Brown. That group meets Thursday on the second floor of the Courthouse Museum at 1:30 p.m. The Board of Supervisors will continue its quagga discussion at its meeting next Tuesday.
The fast-spreading mussel that damages ecosystems has been found in 18 bodies of water in California since last January, Francis said in her presentation to the board, but experts say it has been in Lake Mead for five years. She said from that lake, Clear Lake is the seventh next most popular boating destination. “That means we have been exposed for approximately four years,” Francis said.
She said that “makes me think we”ve been inoculated with it already” and the question then is “how to balance prevention and preparation.”
Local prevention methods that county staff has spent “hours and hours” discussing include the following possibilities, not all of which Francis recommends to the Board of Supervisors.
Closing the lake to outside boats, an option the Board of Supervisors would need to take to the Department of Fish and Game (DFG), the only entity authorized to close the lake if “it appears they may be present,” County Council Anita Grant said. “The board could prevail upon DFG to work in concert with that agency,” Grant said.
Another option presented by Francis, which Farrington said he “tweaked” in the approved motion, is to install decontamination stations at the county borders, or close the lake this summer until stations can be purchased from a manufacturer in Utah.
Francis said options were ranked by staff in terms of effectiveness and associated costs. Those options included closing the lake to bass tournaments, requiring that bass tournament boats are cleaned, or implementing an “honor system of self certifying” that a boat is clean with a sticker.
Out of these options, Francis recommended to the board that by researching clean lakes on the East Coast ? where the mussel is more prevalent ? the county can mimic successful prevention methods.
That would involve reprinting brochures to include quagga information at a cost of $5,500. And a student intern program utilizing area high school students to patrol parks and boat ramp areas could help, Francis said.
She said rather than target the 653 private and public ramps on the lake; the county should inform boaters through the recreation industry. “We could get them on board to get their guests to sign an affidavit, and if they are at risk, ask them to please go down to a decontamination system that we have set up,” Francis said.
Letters could be sent to the 1,650 lake-front property owners containing quagga mussel information at a cost of $500.
“The business owners and Chamber [of Commerce”s] offered to get more involved in having decontamination stations and operate it as a business,” Francis said.
Francis said there are three business owners interested in installing the wash stations, including Hillside Honda, and the best case scenario could have them up and running in one month, depending on how long it takes to order them.
“It would be best to have the county purchase them right away with the agreement with the business to operate them and pay back the county 50 percent of what the initial costs were,” Francis said.
Lastly, she recommended a portable hydro-map warning about the quagga that could be taken to bass tournaments. Eight of these could be purchased for $100,000.
“It was an historic day,” Farrington said after the meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m. “We”re moving really quickly and trying to do this without having to close the lake.”
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
