![]() ![]() The Austin Monitor ’s work is made possible by donations from the community. This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor ’s reporting partnership with KUT. The mussels have fully infested 18 other Texas lakes, including Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Pflugerville and Granger Lake. “Not only do they attach to structures, but if they’re adult zebra mussels, they’ll attach to those zebra mussels, and on and on.” “There’s billions of larva out there at a given time that can later become adult zebra mussels,” Johnston said. Once the mussels reached the Colorado River, they gradually began to move downstream. The mussels are often spread by boaters who boat in infested waters and then enter pristine lakes without properly cleaning their vessels. Last year, the mussels’ presence in a pipe led to smelly tap water it took the city days to flush the system. Zebra mussels arrived in Lake Travis in the middle of 2017. Funding for the remaining term of the contract will depend on what money is available, according to city documents. The city has $533,333 available to pay for the molluscicide in its current budget. “Because this chemical is going to be used at the intake – so very, very close to the lake – we’re working with them to make sure that it doesn’t get into the lake,” Johnston said. The city is also working to retrofit water-intake structures to reduce the risk of the compound killing animals in the lakes. “This particular product is labeled for use as a molluscicide, and so the dose is lower than what would be used for other products,” Johnston said. But the manufacturer says the level of copper sulfate in EarthTec QZ is lower than in other copper sulfate products. Johnston says copper sulfate can be fairly toxic to aquatic life, meaning it could harm other aquatic organisms as well as zebra mussels. Environmental Protection Agency as a way to control infestations of zebra mussels. The chemical compound, known as EarthTec QZ, is liquid copper sulfate pentahydrate, which is registered with the U.S. “They reproduce quickly and can start to line entire segments of a pipe and then eventually start to fill and close off the pipe itself,” says Liz Johnston, environmental program coordinator for the city’s Watershed Protection Department. Austin gets its water from Lake Austin and Lake Travis, which are both infested with zebra mussels. Zebra mussels are small invasive mollusks that can clog the pipes that pull water from reservoirs. “But it is going to have some really serious impacts.Austin City Council has approved spending up to $4 million over the next five years on a liquid compound to remove zebra mussels from water intake systems. “We want to stress that mussels being found in Lake Travis, it’s not the end of the world,” McGarrity says. ![]() ![]() The aquatic creature’s shell is usually about the size of a fingernail, and the resilient free-swimming larvae, which are also able to cause infestation, are microscopic. She says the mussels are “sneaky,” and may be hiding in boaters’ anchors and gears. “What folks can do is clean, drain and dry their boats.” “Once they’re in a lake there’s virtually nothing that can be done other than to try to minimize the impact,” McGarrity says. Zebra mussels, destructive freshwater mollusks, have invaded Lake Travis.Īnd there’s no turning back, says Monica McGarrity, the aquatic invasive species biologist at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. ![]()
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