FLAGSTAFF — Wildlife officials fear an invasive mussel that has been spotted in lakes throughout Arizona will next be introduced to Lake Powell north of Page.
The quagga mussel has appeared in Lakes Mead, Havasu and Mohave. Now, managers at Lake Powell are doing whatever they can to keep the organism out.
If the mussels show up in the lake, they could cause boat motors to overheat and docks and the shoreline to be littered with sharp, smelly shells.
"Basically, the way I see it, just about anything that someone might value about Lake Powell is threatened by this," said Mark Anderson, aquatic ecologist for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
The strength of quagga mussels lies in their numbers. Dubbed "ecological engineers," the species can populate to a density of hundreds of thousands per square yard and deprive fish and other organisms of food.
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There is no effective means of killing the organisms across a large lake, short of poisoning everything.
"They're devastating. I haven't seen anything good about them," said Wayne Gustaveson, fisheries biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
If the mussel gets to Lake Powell, officials say it will most likely be via one of the 100,000 boats that visit the lake every year. If even one of those boats has been exposed to the mussel and not been washed in hot or high-pressure water afterwards, then the mussel has a good chance of establishing in the lake.
Boaters are supposed to fill out a paper saying they're not likely to expose the lake to mussels. But there's no penalty for not filling out the paper.
Anderson said it's an honor system.
"We're hoping that we can educate people about this so they won't try to subvert it," he said.
