Starting November 1st, all boats that enter Santa Margarita and Lopez Lakes will be inspected for invasive shellfish.
Zebra and quagga mussels are known to disrupt the food chain and damage the environment. They attach to boats and can spread between lakes if the vessels are not cleaned.
The mussels’ larvae are also microscopic and can live in the puddles of water that sit in boats, which makes it easier for the species to travel between different bodies of water.
The invasive mussels from Eastern Europe have never been successfully removed from any waterway, so officials said it’s vital to stop them from showing up in San Luis Obispo County in the first place.
The California Department of Boating and Waterways recently gave Lopez Lake a more than $300,000 grant to help combat the mussels, which the county will use to hire two new boat inspectors and a mussel-sniffing dog. The lake has an increased risk for an infestation because of its high calcium content.
Inspectors will make sure boats are free of mussels and drained of all water before entering the lakes.
