(Courtesy DWR) This is how the juvenile quagga mussels found in Deer Creek Reservoir in 2014 looked under a microscope. After three years of monitoring and prevention efforts, quagga mussels have not reappeared.
Apparently the quagga mussel threat at Deer Creek Reservoir is no more.
A sample of the pesky invasive species, which takes over fisheries and clogs up pipes, was discovered in a water sample from the reservoir at Deer Creek State Park in October 2014.
But Nathan Owens, the aquatic invasive species coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources, said the reservoir has gone three years without further detection.
(Courtesy DWR) This is how the juvenile quagga mussels found in Deer Creek Reservoir in 2014 looked under a microscope. After three years of monitoring and prevention efforts, quagga mussels have not reappeared.
So, as of Thursday, Deer Creek is no longer classified as a quagga-suspected waterway and boaters will no longer have to decontaminate their boats before leaving the reservoir, located southwest of Heber City.
Park staff inspected more than 30,000 boats in the past three years; 2,000 of the boats were professionally decontaminated, according to the DWR.
Since the mussels were discovered in Lake Powell in 2013, they have not been found anywhere else in the state.
(Courtesy DWR) Decontaminating boats that posed a threat to Deer Creek Reservoir is among the reasons the reservoir doesn't have mussels in it. (This photo was taken at Sand Hollow Reservoir in 2010.)
“Our prevention and containment methods worked,” Owens said in a news release issued by the DWR on Thursday. “Decontaminating boats that arrived at Deer Creek from Lake Powell and infested waters outside the state prevented mussels from getting into the reservoir and adding to the problem. And requiring boaters to clean and drain their boats — before leaving Deer Creek — prevented any mussels that might have been in Deer Creek from being spread to other waters in the state.”