Zebra Mussels Found in Geneva Lake

From January, 1996 (Update #26)

Adult zebra mussels were found on three different occasions this fall in Walworth County's Geneva Lake, according to officials at the Geneva Lake Environmental Agency. The first sighting occurred in October. About a dozen adult zebra mussels were found attached to a dry-docked boat at Gage Marine. The boat had been moored near the city of Lake Geneva boat launch site, which is near the Geneva Lake outlet to the White and Fox rivers. Following confirmation of the initial sighting by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and UW Sea Grant staff, a lone zebra mussel was recovered from the lake during a scuba survey. Later in the fall several other mussels were reportedly found during removal of piers along the shoreline, according to Geneva Lake Environmental Agency's George Johnson. Geneva Lake is a large (5,400 acre), heavily used recreational lake close to metropolitan Chicago and Milwaukee. The lake generally does not contain a lot of macrophytes due to its deep configuration. Once known as "The Newport of the West," and now promoted with the slogan "Enjoyed for 100 Years by the Rich and Famous," Geneva Lake had 4,500 resident boats in 1995, 60 percent of which were over 21 feet long, according to Johnson. In 1994 almost 20,000 boat launches occurred at lake ramps, suggesting great potential for spreading mussels to other inland lakes.

ID: 199601-10.

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.