Elizabeth Wilson–Record-Bee staff
LAKE COUNTY — The Lake County Board of Supervisors passed a proclamation Tuesday to send a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking that he declare a state of emergency regarding the invasive quagga mussels. The mollusks have infested 18 bodies of water in southern California and officials in Lake County want to prevent it from traveling via watercraft from those waters to Clear Lake.
The board also passed an ordinance requiring inspection of all vessels in Lake County, and set up a fee schedule for boat inspection stickers.
The permanent ordinance takes effect 30 days from Tuesday.
Currently, the stickers are free and are mandatory on all water vessels on Clear Lake.
The board discussed the challenges of ensuring boats are checked and receive stickers during the high traffic-flow of visitors expected this Memorial Day weekend, as well as Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend.
“Are we ready for the tourists? And my suspicion ? and it”s been pretty consistent ? is that we”re not,” Supervisor Anthony Farrington said. He said he saw about 40 boats on Clear Lake over the weekend without stickers.
Deputy Director of Water Resources Pam Francis said of the proclamation she drafted, “it is simply asking the governor of the state to agree that there is an emergency circumstance (and) that the governor then pass the information on to the president with the point of alerting both the state and federal (officials) that counties such as ours need financial assistance if we”re to prevent the infestation of an invasive aquatic species like the quagga or the zebra mussel.”
Supervisor Rob Brown questioned the necessity of adopting a state of emergency in the county. Although the supervisors decided to send a letter to the governor asking he declare a state of emergency, they decided not to adopt a local state of emergency. That would have required the board revisit the quagga state of emergency every two weeks.
“When there is a potential for fire danger, we don”t declare an emergency because of the potential. There”s a potential for earthquake ? we don”t declare an emergency for that potential ? I”m not suggesting that we don”t have something legitimate that we need to be concerned with, but I don”t want to be in a situation where ?be careful what you ask for,”” Brown said.
Lake County Sheriff Rodney Mitchell said his boat patrol deputies reported to him Tuesday morning that they have a difficult time seeing the stickers until “they”re right up on the vessel.” And even then, about 90 percent of the boats they make contact with are in compliance with the sticker program.
“They already have stickers or already have the affidavits showing that they are waiting for stickers or something like that. We”re having very few contacts with people who are in any way upset about having to go through the process of getting the stickers ? that has only been a couple of people,” Mitchell said.
He said no citations have been issued, as there is not yet a codified section of the law allowing for such citations. Citations will begin to be issued when the ordinance becomes law on June 18.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
