Memorandum
Date: December 10, 2024
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Angela De Palma-Dow, Invasive Species Program Coordinator and Pawan Upadhyay, Director Water Resources
Subject: Presentation: Update on Recent Invasive Golden Mussel Detection in the San Joaquin Delta and state, regional, and local response and management actions to date.
Executive Summary:
On October 17, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) reported finding attached, adult invasive Golden Mussels (Limnoperna fortunei) at a sample site location in the Port of Stockton. Mussel specimens were sent to UC Davis Genomic Variation Laboratory and confirmed to be Golden Mussels, originally from China; the species had not previously been detected in North America.
County of Lake and Regional water body managers are extremely concerned. While similar in appearance, biology, and potential ecosystem effects to Quagga and Zebra Mussels (the current focus of invasive mussel prevention programs in Lake County), Golden Mussels pose an even greater threat due to their rapid recolonization rate as adults and wider tolerance of preferred substrates.
Much like Quagga and Zebra mussels, Golden Mussels, if established in Clear Lake or other Lake County Water Bodies, pose a significant threat to water conveyance systems, infrastructure, and water quality. Effects Golden Mussels would have on sport fisheries, like Bass, Crappie, and Catfish, native fisheries and wildlife species, like the Clear Lake Hitch and Clark's and Western Grebes (which feed and forage in shallow lake areas on green algae), and plants whose populations can become heavily disrupted when invasive mussels establish, are not fully known.
There have been lots of developments around this concerning invasive species find, and due to the potential impacts of Clear Lake - based ecologies, economy, drinking water providers, the Water Resources Department would like to provide an update to the public and Boar...
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