So here’s the deal. The invasive mussels have won. There is no practical way to remove them from our fresh water system. I am referring to the fresh water that we all rely on. To live. As in life. 300,000,000 million of us in the U.S. and counting. Let that sink in a little bit…….wait for it……let me start again……There is no practical way to remove them from any fresh water system. They are almost everywhere and aggressively taking over any place they are not.
Humans, supposedly the highest intellect we know of, have been bested by two mollusks known scientifically as Dreissena Polymorpha, or Zebra mussels, and Dreissena Rostriformis Bugensis, or Quagga mussels. Kicking our ass. Not even a contest. If we were in an octagon we would have tapped out long ago.
So what do we do? We can complain to our government – which could turn out well, in an ideal world. I, currently, am not living in that world. We could just do nothing, and let the next generation deal with it, similar to the current administration’s policies. Sorry for the political rhetoric.
What we do is everything, right? One would think we would focus our impressive scientific and intellectual prowess, intensively and immediately, on the problem. Instead, we meet in committees, build educational programs, spend money on nothingness. No effective program in place. None.They come from ballast water used by big ships that bring stuff from other countries. Believe it or not, there is no restriction on ballast water dumping. OK, so what do we do about it?
QuZea LLC has developed a new product that repels the mussels and keeps them away for months.
Think of it as “krytonite” for Zebra and Quagga mussels. You put this disc in the water, and the mussels hate it. They remove themselves from the premises and do not return. It works in all conditions, is safe for all other species, non-toxic, inexpensive, and easy to use.
So the deal is that there is hope in the fight against these invasive mussels. Becoming commercially available is the next step.