Zebra Mussels Get Busted

From May, 1997 (Update #30)

No zebra mussels were found during the March inspection of a dewatered intake bay at the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant on the Mississippi River, Welch, Minn. The inspection was led by Ken Mueller, Northern States Power (NSP) biologist, who invited zebra mussel experts Gary Montz, Minnesota DNR, and Doug Jensen, Minnesota Sea Grant, to assist. "We were somewhat surprised not to find them," said Mueller. "Last winter a similar routine maintenance inspection revealed three adult zebra mussels in the other intake bay. I didn't expect many more in this intake bay, but I did expect we'd find a few." Jensen and Montz were impressed by the scale and magnitude of the intake system - typical in size and design to those found in other facilities throughout the U.S. "I now have a real appreciation of how much effort it takes for industry and municipalities to control and monitor for zebra mussels," said Jensen. "These water intake bays are huge. There is easily a football field's worth of surface area in there for zebra mussel attachment. Although there is no problem here, I was able to observe first hand how zebra mussels can cause problems for trash racks, service water intakes and condensers." Despite the absence of zebra mussels, another biofouler, the Asiatic clam (Corbicula fluminea), littered the floor of the intake bay. Mueller said that Asiatic clams can cause problems for many water-related industries. However, the clams at the Prairie Island Plant have been kept under control and major problems have been avoided through regularly scheduled physical cleaning and removal.

ID: 199705-9.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.