Status Elsewhere

From May 10, 1990 (update #1)

First discovered in June 1988 in Lake St. Clair near Detroit, the zebra mussel quickly established itself in western Lake Erie and has since spread downstream to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Zebra mussels have become established near several locks in the St. Lawrence Seaway System, including the Snell and Eisenhower locks. By late 1989, the water utility and Detroit Edison power plant in Monroe, Mich., nearly had to shut down when they found their Lake Erie water intakes clogged with billions of zebra mussels. Monroe water department officials spent nearly $500,000 in emergency repairs to remove the mussels, which had reduced water intake flows by nearly 25%. Zebra mussel coverage on buoys retrieved by the U.S. Coast Guard last fall from Lakes Erie and Ontario showed a gradual decrease from west to east, ranging from 100% coverage on buoys from the Detroit River, Maumee Bay near Toledo and at Sandusky and Huron, Ohio, to 80% coverage at Cleveland; 60% at Ashtabula, Ohio; 20% at Erie, Pa.; 5% at Buffalo, N.Y., and 0% at Niagara and Oswego, N.Y. These buoys were on station from spring through fall, and coverage was reported as very uniform at each location.

ID: 19900510-4.

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.