LAKE COUNTY — A survey of boaters on Clear Lake during Memorial Day weekend ? both tourists and county residents alike ? revealed mixed opinions about quagga mussels and how people can help protect the lake by getting boat stickers that essentially say the boat is free of the invasive mollusk.
The stickers are mandatory since an urgency ordinance was passed by the county Board of Supervisors March 25 to protect the water bodies in the county from quagga and its closely-related cousin the zebra mussel.
The mussel has been found in 18 bodies of water in southern California. The mussels clog intake pipes, harm the ecosystem and cost the Great Lakes billions of dollars per year to eradicate. They are difficult if not impossible to eradicate and each can produce 1 million offspring per year.
The board discussed at great length last week the problem of preventing the spread of the invasive mussel during high out-of-town boat traffic on the lake.
An on-the-water survey Monday of about 10 boats showed all with stickers. Two boats moored by the shore of Library Park were without stickers.
An unidentified Sheriff”s boat patrolman said he “couldn”t hazard a guess” as to how many boats he saw over the weekend without the stickers. He said he and six other officers were on the lake monitoring for the stickers for the entirety of the Memorial Day weekend. He said Monday, as of 3:30 p.m., he had seen no boats in violation of the sticker program that day.
Nice resident Jim Raymond was out bass fishing with his brother-in-law Ben O”Riley. They got the sticker a few days ago in anticipation of going out on the lake on Memorial Day.
They both said they have no problem abiding by the sticker program, and that it was an “easy” process to sign the affidavit and get the sticker. As Raymond”s boat had not left Clear Lake in two years, they did not need to have it physically inspected.
While county and city officials have been encouraging citizens to keep eyes peeled for stickerless boats, O”Riley said they were “looking for fish” and not stickers. They caught one bass fish during the day.
O”Riley said he wants to do his part to abide by the sticker program because the mussels are “an environmental problem.”
Raymond said he also has no qualms as a county citizen to abide by the new laws, but said, “I don”t think it”s possible to check boats well enough to eliminate the problem ? if the boats are the problem.”
This month, four quagga wash stations will be set up around the county, which will be utilized for boats found to contain the mussel. So far, county officials say the lake is likely free of the mussel.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
