Mussels

In the current issue of Ducks Unlimited Canada Conservator is an article about the zebra mussel, the tiny striped clam whose presence within a few hundred miles of Prettyboy, Liberty and Loch Raven caused the Baltimore Department of Public Works to restrict fishing boats on the city's reservoirs.City officials feared that anglers would bring the mussel into the reservoirs where it could block water piping systems as it has in the Great Lakes.Officials thought that the clam has no natural predators in this hemisphere.

With all the jokes about northern snakeheads, it's easy to forget that there are nasty critters and plant life out there just itching to move in like some freeloading relative. At first, they might appear to be welcomed guests with some redeeming qualities. The easy-on-the-eye, tough-on-plants mute swan comes to mind. But it doesn't take long before Swan Lake turns into the Black Lagoon, home of another web-footed creature. Which brings us to the next unwanted visitor lurking just over the horizon: the zebra mussel.

Portside Tavern in Canton has a new chef, Freddie Melgar. Melgar, who worked for Washington, D.C.'s Madhatter Group and the northern Virginia-based Great American Restaurants, has introduced a new Prince Island mussels menu. The newly released menu features six preparations including the "Mostard," with spicy bison sausage, leeks, Dijon and thyme broth; the "Jalfrezzi" with red pepper, onion, garlic, curry, tomato and coconut milk and the "Baltimore," with Old Bay, garlic, herbs and IPA beer broth.

Zebra mussels have finally made their way down the Susquehanna River to the Chesapeake Bay, though it's unclear what if any harm the invasive aquatic species might do there. This month, state biologists found 20 of the non-native shellfish attached to three channel marker buoys off Havre de Grace as they were removing the buoys from the water for the winter, the Department of Natural Resources reported. Native to the Caspian and other seas in eastern Europe, zebra mussels were first discovered in the United States in the Great Lakes region in the 1980s, likely transported there in the ballast water of ships.

Zebra mussels, one of the most notorious aquatic pests in the nation, have been discovered in a small New York reservoir that feeds into the Susquehanna River, and top scientists are meeting today to outline a plan to prevent them from spreading in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The tiny mollusks, which are native to Europe and have no natural enemies here, have spread rapidly since they were brought to the Great Lakes in a ship's ballast water in the early 1980s. They grow so quickly that they can clog intake pipes at power plants, factories and municipal water plants, forcing them to shut down.

There's a remote possibility the Chesapeake Bay could soon be transformed into the cleanest estuary in the world. Rivers now turbid and dingy and laden with silt and nutrients may become crystal-clear tributaries free of municipal waste and industrial pollutants.Local and federal agencies have spent nearly $1 billion to achieve this goal, but the actual cleanup of the Chesapeake may eventually be credited to millions of tiny bivalves known as "zebra mussels."Unfortunately, these highly prolific, efficient filter feeders could also bring about the demise of the world's largest estuary.

The Baltimore City Department of Public Works yesterday extended the moratorium on boats at Liberty and Prettyboy reservoirs through the 1992 season. Loch Raven Reservoir will be restricted to the use of county-owned rental boats from the Fishing Center."

For the first time, Maryland waters have been invaded by an alien mussel capable of fouling public water systems, destroying native aquatic life and causing millions of dollars in damage. A single zebra mussel was scooped from inside a water intake pipe upstream from the Conowingo Dam that spans Harford and Cecil counties by a fish survey team on the Susquehanna River. The mussel, about a half-inch in size, was sent to a Pennsylvania laboratory for positive identification. "Finding just one doesn't make sense," said Jonathan McKnight, an invasive species expert with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Five Maryland fishermen and two businessmen met with Baltimore's director of public works yesterday to discuss the closure of two city-operated reservoirs to boats and to offer their assistance with a potential zebra mussel problem.Baltimore's Prettyboy and Liberty reservoirs have been closed to boaters and anglers in boats since March 1, when the Department of Public Works decided to postpone issuing mandatory permits until it could find a way to delay or prevent zebra mussel infestation.

With the zebra mussel debacle obviously deadlocked for the time being -- and probably for weeks to come -- the area's reservoir boat fishermen have just three choices.They can leave their craft at home and fish Liberty and Prettyboy from shore, stay home with their boats, or fish elsewhere in their reservoir rigs.The latter alternative, of course, is preferable.Unfortunately, considering the nature of bass boat rigs, the options are limited.Our reservoir boats -- well rigged as they are -- are not equipped to run the open and much larger lakes in neighboring states, including, at times, Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County or Conowingo Reservoir above the Susquehanna's Conowingo Dam.For the larger reservoirs, gasoline outboards are needed.