A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 28, 2008
3. Watersheds –
Wreckage on the river
Sacramento
State plans weekend enforcement to stop invasive mussels
Lake County Record
Mussel found on boat hull at South Lake Tahoe
Reno
Caples Lake
Sacramento
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Wreckage on the river
By Sena Christian
Government officials touring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in July gasped when they saw the wreckage. They’d heard of the problem with abandoned boats sinking and polluting our waterways, but most had not seen for themselves the extent of the trash.
They gasped loudest in Fisherman’s Cut, off Franks Tract State Recreation Area, a place local fisherman call “The Shipyard,” where roughly a dozen vessels languish, including a few barges and tugboats and, strangely, a vessel that once served as a floating schoolhouse with two classrooms, now half-sunken in the blue water. Inside some of these vessels may be lead-acid batteries, gasoline, lead paint, asbestos, antifreeze, plastic items, appliances and refrigerants from air-conditioning units. And when boats sink, these hazardous materials go straight into the water, affecting sensitive surrounding habitat, wetlands, protected wildlife and levees.
The 40 people toured the Delta as part of a five-hour workshop to examine ecological obstacles faced by the Delta, a water system that supplies two-thirds of the state’s population, or roughly 23 million people, with drinking water. This supply is already difficult to treat for municipal use, and the California Bay-Delta Authority and others predict the challenge will worsen as water quality degrades with future population growth and development along the Delta.
As if we don’t have enough to worry about with mercury-carrying fish, declining fish populations and invasive plant species, plastic debris, subsiding islands, eroding levees and sea-level rise, the eco-tour highlighted the longstanding concern with irresponsible boating on the Delta—including boat abandonment.
“People are becoming more and more aware that these [abandoned] boats aren’t only an eyesore but also an environmental hazard,” said Denise Peterson, boating law-enforcement manager for the California Department of Boating and Waterways.
“People live on a boat until it starts sinking and then don’t know what to do with it,” said Contra Costa County Marine Patrol Sgt. Doug Powell during the tour. But once a vehicle starts sinking, removal costs about $200 per square foot, he said, which means larger vessels can take hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
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His hope lies in Assembly Bill 1950, which would change the law to authorize abatement of willingly surrendered vessels prior to abandonment; currently, boats can only be removed after they’re abandoned; removing a boat before it sinks would make the process much less costly. The bill was authored by Assemblyman Ted Lieu and should land on the governor’s desk after the state budget is resolved. The legislation would also allow local governments to use money from AWAF to dispose of commercial vessels and not only recreational ones.
The eco-tour was sponsored by the Keep the Delta Clean program, a collaboration of local governments, state agencies and private industry that formed to implement a pollution-prevention infrastructure for the Delta. Before this program, “Recreational boating issues had never been addressed,” said program director Tonya Redfield. Although local governments have long-recognized pollution concerns tied to recreational activities on the Delta—as well as those caused by abandoned boats—a unified effort to educate boaters about how to be more environmentally responsible didn’t exist, nor did the supportive infrastructure.
Keep the Delta Clean partnered with marinas and yacht clubs in 2004 to identify boaters’ needs. And there were plenty. Some boaters spill toxic cleaning products on the docks, which seep through cracks into the water beneath. Or boaters may fail to clean out their boat’s engines, and dirty engines leak fuel and oil into water that is eventually pumped overboard. Oil-recycling centers, oil-absorbent exchange centers, fishing-line recycling stations and pet-waste stations were installed this summer to address these problems and others.
“This is a shared benefit and shared responsibility,” Redfield said, pointing out that when it comes to waterways and boating, jurisdictional boundaries don’t matter. #
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=770189
State plans weekend enforcement to stop invasive mussels
Lake
Written by Elizabeth Larson
State officials say they're planning to keep a close eye on the thousands of boats entering
The California Department of Food and Agriculture's (CDFA) border stations will inspect watercraft at six border stations along the
“This is a good beginning to a more complete program of boat inspections within the state,” said Sen. Pat Wiggins, who chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, which deals with invasive species as well as other issues. “Until every boater knows the serious, potential threat of quagga mussels invading our precious lakes, waterways and pipelines, inspections are a necessary inconvenience.”
Funding for the inspections was granted to CDFA after quagga mussels were discovered in the
Since early 2007, CDFA has intercepted 200 mussel-infested watercraft from among the 150,000 watercraft it has inspected. In addition, 14,000 watercraft were cleaned and/or drained of all water that could harbor the mussels.
This weekend an estimated 4,000 watercraft will enter
The mussels have infested several Southern California lakes and waterways, but so far have not been found in Northern California or in
The quaggas are particularly invasive in lakes with low acidity, such as
“Entry of even a few quaggas into
The mussels attach themselves to boat hulls or may be free-swimming larvae in trapped water in boat bilges, live wells, and other places capable of harboring water while boats are in transit, CDFA reported.
CDFA reported that when its inspectors find the exotic mussels on watercraft, the vessels are cleaned and the owners issued a quarantine notice prohibiting the craft from entering
The dangerous pests can alter habitat and water chemistry, making waterways uninhabitable to native species, officials reported.
They've caused serious environmental and economic impacts for infested areas such as the
In an effort to protect the county's water bodies from the mussels, earlier this year the Board of Supervisors adopted and ordinance that made Lake County's one of the first governments in the state to set up an invasive species inspection program.
All boats entering the county's lakes must have an inspection sticker after completing a screening and, if necessary, a full inspection to certify they are mussel-free, as Lake County News has reported. Any vessels that don't pass inspection will not be allowed to launch until after they've been decontaminated and reinspected.
The quagga and zebra mussels are believed to have traveled from their native
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that a bill to set federal cleanup standards for such ships is deadlocked in Congress, because Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-California) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
Part of the disagreement centers on Boxer's concern that the federal law could preempt
In order to keep quagga and zebra mussels from spreading to
– Boaters should inspect all exposed surfaces, wash boat hulls thoroughly, remove all plants from boat and trailer, drain all water, including lower outboard units, clean and dry livewells and bait buckets and dispose of baitfish in the trash.
– Watercraft should be dried for at least five days between launches in different fresh bodies of water.
– Have boats and other watercraft inspected as part of the Lake County Invasive Species Inspection Program. For information or to find the nearest inspection location, visit the Lake County Mussel Web site at www.co.lake.ca.us/mussels, or call the Lake County Mussel Hotline at 707-263-2556.#
http://lakeconews.com/content/view/5445/764/
Mussel found on boat hull at South Lake Tahoe
By Jeff DeLong
A boat encrusted with invasive mussels and about to be launched into
The harbor master at South Lake Tahoe's Tahoe Keys Marina first saw mussels on the stern of a 32-foot cabin cruiser as it was about to be hoisted into the water Friday.
Experts later confirmed the mollusks were quagga mussels, which apparently attached to the vessel while in
"This is the first one we've actually found that actually had mussels on it," said Jenny Francis of the Tahoe Resource Conservation District, which is leading inspection efforts at the lake.
The incident, Thayer said, makes clear the danger posed by mussel-infested boats and the importance of mounting a program to detect any before they are put into the lake.
"This tells us boats do come from Mead and there may be live mussels on board," Thayer said. "It is both scary and encouraging at the same time."
The vessel owner said it was decontaminated when it left
That, combined with the time the vessel was out of the water, could mean the mussels were dead when discovered at the Tahoe Keys.
"They could have already been dead, but we decided: better safe than sorry," Thayer said of the decision to put the boat under quarantine.
Biologists plan to recheck the vessel Sept. 3 to ensure it is clean and can be released to its owner, he said.
Quagga mussels, previously found only in the Midwest and Northeast, were first discovered in Lake Mead in early 2007 and have since spread to other parts of
Both types of mussels could cause widespread problems if they were to become established in
In June, the TRPA board approved regulations requiring mandatory inspections of boats being launched into the lake in effort to prevent introduction of mussels.
More inspectors are being trained, with the boat launch in
Some launches still don't have inspectors available every day, leading officials early this month to ask marina operators to close boat ramps when no inspectors are available.
"We need to do everything we possibly can to make sure they don't get in the lake," said Mara Bresnick, chairwoman of the TRPA governing board.#
http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/NEWS04/808280342/1321/NEWS
Caples Lake
Sacramento
By Chris Bowman
The difference was apparently night and day.
State Fish and Game crews racing to transplant all the trout they can net from fast-draining
The graveyard shift hauled 3,000 fish by tanker truck to nearby Silver and Red lakes in the tiny High Sierra county of Alpine. The day crew, by comparison, nabbed fewer than 100 on Tuesday, the start of a nonstop 72-hour fish rescue.
Fish and Game workers with no shortage of volunteers hope to capture thousands more trout today and Friday as the El Dorado Irrigation District drains Caples for repair of the dam gates this fall.
Officials are not surprised by their nighttime success. In daylight, especially on cloudless hot days, larger fish hang in the protective shadows of big boulders and tree stumps on the cool lake bottom. Come nightfall, when the surface waters darken and cool, the trophy-size trout start working the shores for insects.
That's where Fish and Game's "shock boats" are dispersing electric currents of 1,000 to 1,500 volts to stun fish for easy netting.
"We scoop them up as soon as they roll," said Harry Morse, a spokesman for the agency, which regularly stocks the lake with rainbows, brooks, browns and Mackinaws.
The three shock boats far outdid the five vessels trolling with gill nets.
"As soon as we saw what was happening, we called in four more electro-shock boats to really get hot and heavy at it tonight," Morse said Wednesday.
Few fish have died in captivity, he said. One of them happened to be a 33-inch-long, 18.5-pound brown snagged in a gill net, the largest fish yet caught.
Biologists necropsied it to determine its age. Morse wished he'd photographed it as proof to anglers that Caples truly does harbor lunkers.#
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1192116.html
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