Santa Clara County officials ban boats to ward against invasive mussels
By Julie Sevrens Lyons
Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/13/2008 06:35:17 PM PDT
Water officials took the unprecedented step Tuesday of banning boating in all Santa Clara County reservoirs - at least until May 23.
Citing the need to protect the local water supply from invasive shellfish that have hitchhiked to California, they have barred all watercrafts including canoes, kayaks, motorboats and fishing boats.
The ban is expected to be temporary. Water and county officials are exploring a plan to reopen the reservoirs - possibly by Memorial Day weekend. But that idea remains controversial and far from certain; it calls for closing about half of the reservoirs to boaters and mandatory watercraft inspections at the remaining reservoirs.
And with an estimated $550,000 price tag to perform inspections to the end of the year, both the water district and county are waffling at paying for it. Officials are considering charging users at least $7 for inspections.
The news, coming at the beginning of a heat wave expected to run through Friday, disappointed some residents.
"It means I'm not going to be able to water ski for the next two weeks," said a glum Jeff Bense, president of the Santa Clara County Water Ski Club. If the prohibition on personal watercrafts runs longer, "I'll put my boat up for sale," he said.
The ban came after months of planning and more than two hours of heated debate Tuesday, narrowly winning a 4-3 vote by the Santa Clara Valley Water District's board of directors.
It represents "the first
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time we've ever had an all-out ban on boating in our county reservoirs," said Tamara Clark-Shear, spokeswoman for the County of Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department.
"When temperatures start to rise, we get a lot more people who like to recreate on the water to take a break from the heat," she said. "They won't be able to do that in our reservoirs."
Blame it on the lowly zebra and quagga mussels, two invasive species that can clog reservoir pipelines, valves and pumps.
In the Great Lakes region, where both types of mussels have proliferated, water agencies have spent millions of dollars in an effort to control them. But the mussels quickly multiply, forming thick blankets over the infrastructure of water systems. They are all but impossible to eradicate.
"It's like cancer. It can really wreak havoc on a water system," said Lisa Killough, director of the County of Santa Clara Parks and Recreation Department.
Water officials anticipated the mussels would be a problem they would have to tackle one day.
Quagga mussels have been sighted throughout Southern California reservoirs. But in January, zebra mussels were found in the San Justo Reservoir in San Benito County - the first time that species was found west of the Rocky Mountains. That reservoir was immediately made off limits to boaters.
"That really was a wake-up call," said Susan Siravo, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District. "The situation became much more urgent."
Recognizing that the mussels are able to attach rather inconspicuously to boats and then jump off when introduced into a new body of water, several water officials said Tuesday they couldn't put recreational boaters ahead of local water users. After all, water consumers could ultimately have to pay to replace pipes and valves clogged with the wily mussels.
Current plans call for reopening just four of the county's 10 reservoirs to boaters - Anderson, Calero, Coyote and Stevens Creek. Inspections could cost $7 apiece, although that number could easily rise, board members said Tuesday.
But as it is, water officials made no firm promise that they would allow kayaks, canoes or water ski boats on their reservoirs ever again.
"Quite frankly, our No. 1 priority is water supply," said Rosemary Kamei, chairwoman of the water board. "It always has been."
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Contact Julie Sevrens Lyons at
jlyons@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5989.
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