BuRec Confirms Invasive Quagga Mussels Inside Hoover Dam Turbine Cooling System - NYT

[hatrack]

The Bureau of Reclamation wants to use an experimental biological pesticide to control invasive mussels that are interfering with dam and hydropower operations that supply electricity and drinking water to millions of people across the Southwest.

The problem is quagga mussels, natives of Europe and Asia discovered in the Colorado River watershed in early 2007. The organisms, which grow to about 1.5 inches, are clogging water lines that are used to cool the 17 massive hydropower turbines at Hoover Dam and have already forced dam operators to temporarily shut down the power plant that supplies electricity to 1.6 million people in southern Nevada, Arizona and California.

The mussels have caused similar problems at the downstream Davis Dam in Lake Mohave and Parker Dam in Lake Havasu, both of which provide electricity for thousands of people in Arizona and California. The mussels have also threatened to clog water intake lines in Lake Mead operated by the Southern Nevada Water System that supply water to more than 2 million people in the Las Vegas area. "We're very concerned," said Fred Nibling, a Reclamation biologist in Denver who is helping lead agency efforts to combat the mussel invasion.

The Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Hoover, Davis and Parker dams, has used chlorine to remove the mussels and employed divers with high-pressure water hoses to blow them out of pipelines and filter gates. But those treatments are expensive, temporary, and in the case of chlorine, can have negative environmental impacts.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/12/10/10greenwire-tiny-eurasian-mussel-now-threatening-mighty-ho-18381.html

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. What irony is this?

Freshwater shellfish causing problems in the middle of a desert?

[GliderGuider]

2. "and in the case of chlorine, can have negative environmental impacts"

So instead they want to try an "experimental biological pesticide".

What could possibly go wrong?

[bergie321]

4. "experimental biological pesticide"

Exactly what I want in my drinking water...

[kestrel91316]

3. Doesn't the Quagga mussel have ANY natural microscopic enemies we can recruit?

[Nihil]

6. Failing that, a garlic & cream sauce?

Hell, find out how they make whale-meat edible and do the same
for quagga to take advantage of a wonderful export opportunity!
:evilgrin:

[AlecBGreen]

7. yes, that is what they are using.

"On questions of safety, Willett said Reclamation would only use dead bacteria in the pesticide. But even dead, the bacteria has been shown to release a toxin that attacks the cells in the mussels' digestive gland, causing massive hemorrhaging that kills individual mussels within hours, and entire colonies within days."

[n2doc]

5. Tribbles with shells n/t