The East Bay Municipal Utilities District plans to severely restrict boating on reservoirs this recreational season, which began this month, in an effort to keep two tiny, but destructive, invasive mussel species from shutting down the water delivery system.

The restrictions on access to Pardee and Camanche reservoirs will impact boaters in Amador and Calaveras counties and also affect San Pablo, Lafayette, Chabot and Briones reservoirs as the district intends to turn away all boats from outside of California as well as boaters from Southern California, San Benito and Santa Clara counties. All boats coming into the reservoir areas will be inspected before launch and boaters who have recently had their boats in any identified high risk waters will also be turned away. Any boats found to have mussels will not be allowed into the water and the removal of those mussels on boats will be done in coordination with the state Department of Fish and Game.

These actions are only the beginning of a massive prevention effort by EBMUD, the state of California and other concerned utilities. The goal is to keep the tiny, fast breeding quagga and zebra mussels from waterways because once they arrive they are difficult to remove. Typically, the mussels, which are native to the Ukraine and were first detected in the Great Lakes in 1989, are fingernail sized but can grow up to 2 inches and attach to almost anything, including plants, boats, motors, trailers and recreational equipment that is present in water. A single mussel can release more than 40,000 eggs in a reproductive cycle and up to 1 million in spawning season.

According to Amador Water Agency Manager of Engineering and Planning Gene Mancebo, the mussels certainly could cause problems for the water supply. "The mussels have an affinity for pipelines and if they were to get into our raw water transmission pipe it eventually would choke off the supply." Mancebo said that the agency's problem would be the ongoing maintenance of trying to keep the pipes free of the zebra mussel. "That is our biggest fear," he said.

To date, U.S. congressional researchers estimate an infestation of the zebra mussel in the Great Lakes has cost the power industry $3.1 billion in a 6-year period with an overall impact of more than $5 billion due to the spread of the mussels that threatens water delivery systems, hydroelectric facilities, agriculture, recreational boating and fishing along with the environment in general. The hard-to-remove mussels clog pipes and screens and disrupt the functions of other infrastructure to a degree it can no longer function until a shutdown and scraping occur along with high doses of chlorine being applied.

The state Department of Fish and Game, Water Resources, Food and Agriculture, Boating and Waterways, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, National Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation are working together in an effort with local agencies since January of last year where more than 74,000 boats have been inspected at protection stations with 8,208 being water drained and 70 detained for cleaning.

"Our success depends on the cooperation of the boating public and similar preventive actions by operators of other recreation areas," said EBMUD General Manager Dennis Diemer. "It will take a coordinated, comprehensive effort by everyone involved to prevent the spread of these invasive mussels to EBMUD reservoirs and other water bodies. EBMUD alone cannot solve the problem."

AWA is participating in efforts to keep the mussel from area waterways and, according to Mancebo, is still trying to figure out what this will mean.

"Eventually Fish and Game may quarantine and we don't know what that means. Are we cut off? Or restricted? We're working on figuring that out," he said. "To the degree that we can be a part of the proactive activities, we are participating."