Zebra mussels came to the Great Lakes in the 1980s in the ballast water of large ships from eastern Europe. These mussels are small, the size of a navy bean and smaller and reproduce very fast with no enemies. They cover lake beds, destroying native mussels and the habitat for game fish. They clog the intake pipes for power plants, factories, and water-treatment plants and cost millions for laborious removal. They get transferred to other bodies of water by boaters. There has been no way to stop their destructive advance.

Rochester Public Utilities owns a dam on the Zumbro River, about 20 miles north of Rochester. Lake Zumbro is the first inland lake in Minnesota to have a zebra mussel population. The utility plans to lower the water level of the lake by 5 feet which will expose the mussels to freezing temperatures. They will die after 1 to 3 days of exposure. This will not remove all the mussels from the lake but will remove the threat from the utilities pipes.

Its the first time this kind of treatment has been done in North America.

-- johnn littmann (littmannj@aol.com), November 22, 2000

Answers

This is sooooo cruel.

-- (PetulantPeter@PETA.pests), November 22, 2000.

Deep fried mussels taste just like deep fried cats....just takes more of them to make a good meal..

-- meat be meat (whether its mussels or c@t.s), November 22, 2000.