So, after spending millions of dollars and inspecting tens of thousands of boats in CA, has a single mussel been found at any lake in CA? Has the spending been justified, or a total waste?

I've had my boat inspected at Del Valle, San Pablo, Coyote, Santa Margarita, Casitas, Perris, Diamond Valley, Clear Lake, and at the California border with Arizona. At most of those locations I've asked the inspectors if they've ever found anything. In every case the answer has been no.

One inspector actually told me that if they did find something, they would send the person home and not report it to the water district because even a single finding could scare the district bad enoguh to close the lake completely. Which would mean they would lose their job. This is a classic . Given this, can we even expect that if mussels are found they will be reported? I would reason that in most cases they will not be reported.

The most likely scenario I see for mussel infestation in Northern California is via a house boat or similar large vessel that comes from an infested location like Mead or Havasu. I watched the woman who inspected my boat when I crossed the CA border coming from Missouri. Water could have been in my lower unit or in the livewell and she would never have found it. I doubt she knew what a livewell was or where to find one in a boat. The inspection was a joke compared to what they put you through at DVL or Coyote. If my next stop was a place like Don Pedro, McClure, Melones, San Antonio, Nacimiento, Clear Lake, Oroville, the CA Delta and Shasta where there are no inspections or joke inspections (Clear Lake) the mussel would get in.

The second most likely scenario to my mind is that the mussels will come from a boat in San Diego that launches at one of those large water bodies named above. That one is a no brainer since lakes like Lower Otay and El Capitan have mussels and there's nothing to stop people from driving straight to a place like Don Pedro and launching. They dump the bilge when they get there and off go the mussels.

We all know that most of those large lakes listed above drain to the CA Delta. So as soon as one is infested, the Delta is only a matter of time. Stopping the mussels from getting downstream will be as futile as or stopping . Those programs make fun work for biologists and headlines in the newspaper but they don't work. They just waste a lot of money that could have been spent doing something useful things like creating fish habitat or cleaning up garbage on the shore of the lake. Just imagine if all the quagga mussel inspectors in the state had been cleaning up trash and planting fish habitat instead of sticking their finger up drain plugs.

I see mussel infestation in the CA Delta is inevitable. When it does happen the question will then be, "What's next?" Water from the Delta flows all over the state. It may be possible to treat and filter to these 'downstream' locations and keep the mussels out, but at what cost? Would it be cheaper to just open up boating at all lakes again and let the mussels go where they may?

Is it cheaper to install equipment at the lakes to deal with the mussels than to inspect for them for year after year? Has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis here? Or was the California response to the dreaded mussel infestation just a knee-jerk reaction based on ignorance of the facts? Here's a map showing mussel locations across the country.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/7911-qm_map.jpg

Should we feel pity for everyone around the great lakes and points south that are infested by the mussel? I mean, their lives must be terrible, right?. Or should we have a reality check and look at the well known fact that the only time any humans have lost water in the United States because of mussels was in Monroe, MI in 1989 for 2 days. Time for a reality check people.

Mussel infestation across California is inevitable. The results will not be disastrous. Fishing will be fine. Drinking water will be fine. The only disaster is continuing to harass boaters and pour money down the drain inspecting boats. The water districts should just save the money for the day when they have to start filtering for mussels. If they had started two years ago they'd have a nice chunk of change saved up already.

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