Boaters visiting Clear Lake and Lake County in 2010 will see some major changes regarding boat inspections for the quagga mussel. On Tuesday, the Lake County Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved a new protocol that requires all boats not registered in the county to be carefully screened. The protocol was drafted by the Invasive Species Council and presented to the BOS. It takes effect on Jan. 1.
The protocol exempts canoes, kayaks, row boats, float tubes, inflatable rafts, wind surfers/boards and boogey boards. In the past these floatable devices were required to have a quagga mussel sticker, but no longer. However, they still need to be clean, drained and dry before being launched into the lake.
Boaters who have their vessels registered in Lake County won”t have to do anything new, but they will be required to obtain a resident sticker that is valid indefinitely. However, any resident boat that leaves and returns to the county needs to be clean, dry and inspected if it visited an infested body of water.
The procedure for out-of-county or non-resident boats is that a certified screener must inspect them. The boater will fill out a form and sign it, stating that his/her boat has not been in a quagga mussel- or zebra mussel-infested body of water for the past 30 days and is not registered in a county that has the mussels. The screener will do a walk-around visual inspection of the boat to make sure it is clean, drained and dry.
Clean means the boat is clean of debris and has no mussels attached to the boat or the trailer.
Drained means all water is drained from livewells, storage compartments, bilge and engine.
Dry means there are no signs of standing water on or in the vessel or trailer.
If it”s a wakeboard boat, the ballast tank must be drained. Any boat that is not cleaned, drained and dry may not launch and must be decontaminated and inspected by a certified inspector before being allowed to launch. If the screener determines the boat is suspect and could be containing mussels, the boater will be directed to take the boat to a certified inspector, who will thoroughly inspect it. Only then will the boat be issued a color-coded plastic identification band, which must be attached in a visible location in the front one-third portion of the boat.
The color-coded band will cost $10 for non-resident boaters and is valid for the month it is issued in. For example, January”s band may be red and February”s band may be blue.
There are presently more than 20 screening and inspection stations located around the county, many of them open seven days a week and during early morning hours. In reality, only a small portion of the boats will require an inspection. Most of the out-of-county boats come from Northern California where the mussel hasn”t yet appeared. These boats should have no trouble passing the screening test. The boats the authorities are looking for are the ones that have recently been to such lakes as Lake Mead or the Colorado River, or even out-of-state boats. These boats are classified as “high-risk” vessels and will be scrutinized more closely.
The new ordinance applies to all waters within the boundaries of Lake County, which means Clear Lake, Lake Pillsbury, Indian Valley Reservoir as well as Upper and Lower Blue Lakes. The Lake County Sheriff”s Boat Patrol will closely monitor these bodies of water and will cite any boat found not to have the current quagga mussel band. The fine can be as high as $450, which includes court costs.
Despite what some people make think, the quagga mussel probably hasn”t yet reached the county. The county and the Department of Fish and Game have placed concrete blocks at various locations around the lake. These blocks contain a high calcium concentration, which attracts the mussel. The blocks are checked weekly and there has been no evidence of mussels being found to date.
Whereas some fishermen might be upset about paying $10 per month to get a quagga mussel sticker, the price is small in comparison to the launch fees that other lakes charge. All the public launch ramps on Clear Lake are free, which is very rare in these times.
