ZEBRA MUSSELS RECIPE FULL

ZEBRA MUSSELS RECIPE FULL

The state of New York's power industry was looking for a solution to its increasingly clogged water-intake pipes full of zebra and quagga mussels, without using harsh chemicals 'that are known to be harmful to the environment, the equipment, and can be harmful to workers,' said Keith Pitts, a vice president of regulatory and government affairs with Marrone Bio. 'You probably have Pseudomonas under your fingernails right now,' she said. The stuff is everywhere, said Carolyn Link, a regulatory affairs manager with Marrone Bio Innovations, the product's manufacturer, based in Davis, Calif. Zequanox is derived from dried, dead cells from a common North American soil bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens. But a relatively new product, expanded for use in a new way, is showing promise. The few options to fight the mussels' spread haven't worked beyond an isolated area or threatened other aquatic life. They have all but crowded out native clam species and have disrupted the base of the aquatic food chain - vacuuming up the tiniest plants and animals upon which aquatic insects and small fish feed. Those, in turn, are eaten by the large game fish that create a multibillion-dollar fishing tourism industry in Michigan. Zebra and quagga mussels also cost industries, businesses and communities $5 billion between 1993 and 1999 by clogging water intake pipes, according to congressional research, with $3.1 billion of that cost coming from the power industry alone.

► Related: Goats eating invasive plants in Ottawa County ► Related: NASA joins fight against invasive Great Lakes shoreline plant Clair, likely arriving in the ballast water of freighters that traveled through eastern Europe, zebra and quagga mussels can now be abundantly found in each of the Great Lakes and most major river systems in the eastern U.S. Though only about the size of a dime, the mussels reproduce quickly, eat voraciously and clump together, clinging to almost anything in the water. But completely eradicating the invaders from Michigan's waterways remains a pipe dream, experts say.Īlmost three decades after being discovered in Lake St. Researchers say they believe they may have finally found a safe, effective means of combating one of the Great Lakes' most persistent and damaging aquatic invaders - zebra and quagga mussels.

Zebra mussels recipe