Clamping down on quagga mussels
Lake Casitas and other Southern California waterways ban recreational boats in an effort to keep the non-native pests from fouling drinking water supplies.
Local water authorities have begun closing some of the state's prime fishing lakes in an effort to keep an infestation of tiny quagga mussels from fouling drinking water supplies for nearly 375,000 residents and threatening fish populations.
The closure two weeks ago of Lake Casitas, a favorite of bass anglers, to recreational boat use was followed within days by similar action at Westlake Lake in eastern Ventura County. Escondido imposed a temporary ban on private vessels at Lake Wolford, and Santa Barbara County officials are considering closing Lake Cachuma for at least six months.
Managers of local waterways say they've been forced to take drastic steps because the state Fish and Game Department has dragged its feet in dealing with what they say is the critical threat the nonnative mussels pose to vast supplies of drinking water.
Fish and Game has declined to ban recreational boat use at nearly a dozen locations where the pinkie-sized mollusk has been found, including in the Colorado River Aqueduct, Lake Havasu, two lakes in Riverside County and five reservoirs in San Diego County, water officials say.
"They are leaving open the infected waters, and we have to close our clean lakes to protect ourselves," said Russ Baggerly, a member of a Ventura County water board that voted March 4 to close Lake Casitas to outside fishing boats for at least a year. "We have put the pressure on."
Fish and Game's acting director, John McCamman, believes that outright bans are an overzealous response, Terry Foreman, program manager for the department's fisheries branch, told Santa Barbara County supervisors last week.
"Closures are a last resort," Foreman said. "The director has made that clear."
Native to Russia and Ukraine, the mussel migrated to the Great Lakes region in the 1980s, probably in the ballast of ocean freighters. They hitchhike on boats and trailers, and quickly form new colonies in bodies of water. They are virtually impossible to eradicate, potentially adding hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance costs to pumps, pipes and other infrastructure across the state, water district officials say.
"The state has the authority to impose many more measures than they have done so far," said Kate Rees, general manager of a Santa Barbara County water agency that draws from scenic Lake Cachuma to supply water to about 300,000 customers from Goleta to Carpinteria.
