Libby Adams is a lone sentry, standing guard at the Idaho border, watching for an invading force that could cripple Malheur County’s economy. Adams works at the state rest area on Interstate 84 just inside the Oregon border at Ontario. Each shift, the employee of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife checks boats for invasive species. She’s especially on alert for a tiny but voracious critter – the quagga mussel. Growing no larger than the size of a quarter, the mussels can denude a lake of nutrients in a matter of days. In just weeks, they can create a nearly-impenetrable barrier at small water intakes such as used in irrigation networks. “Once mussels invade a body of water, they are virtually impossible to remove,” according to an Oregon State University briefing paper. Idaho officials announced recently they found the mussel again in the Snake River at Twin Falls, just 60 miles upriver from Oregon. The discovery jolted officials, and Malheur County mobilized overnight to deal with the threat. They are especially concerned about potential contamination of Lake Owyhee. For now, they plan to beat the pots and pans of government to draw public attention. Education, they assess, is the most immediate action. They want people to ensure their boats, kayaks and other water vessels are free of the mussels. Quagga mussels grow to about the size of a dime. Their sharp edges can slice fish. Oregon officials are on alert for the troublesome mussels after one was discovered in September in Idaho. (LES ZAITZ/The Enterprise) The next step is to get reinforcements for Adams and her colleagues, installing a boat inspection station on the roadway to Lake Owyhee to detect any quagga mussel hitchhikers. “If they get established, they’re going to be a very expensive problem for the rest of forever,” said Clancy Flynn, manager of the Owyhee Irrigation District in Nyssa. The mussel is getting “closer and closer” to Oregon, according to Taylor Rembowski, director of Malheur County Economic Development Department. “That’s the big scare.” Such alarm over a tiny water creature seems justified for the potential havoc it could cause in places like Malheur County. Interviews with experts and a review of scientific reports underscore what’s at stake. The quagga mussel is a clam-like creature that thrives in fresh water. A single female can release thousands of eggs at once – up to 1 million a year. The mussel larvae float through the water, carried by currents and so small they aren’t visible to the eye without magnification. As they float, they feed. They do so by screening water for food such as phytoplankton. An adult quagga can go through a half gallon of water a day. As the mussels grow into hardened, razor-sharp shells, they cluster and attach to hard surfaces. That includes piers, buoys, life jackets, boats and even each other. Native to Ukraine, the quagga mussels were first detected in the U.S. in the Great Lakes in about 1988. Researchers believe they were brought in through a cargo ship’s ballast water. Since then, the quagga mussels – named for a now-extinct relative of the zebra – have been found in Texas and in Western states, likely carried west on the hulls of boats. Quagga mussels have been found in Nevada, California and Idaho. Last year, Idaho officials took the dramatic step of treating a section of the Snake River with a chelated copper product that they reported was “effective in reducing the mussel population.” But on Tuesday, Sept. 24, Idaho officials announced that quagga mussels again were found in the Snake River. “Tuesday was a sad day for inspectors,” said Adams. Libby Adams of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staffs the boat inspection station at the Interstate 84 rest area near Ontario on Thursday, Sept. 26. The inspections are key to stopping invasive species such as the quagga mussel from entering Oregon waterways. Officials hope to get a second station established on the road to Lake Owyhee. (LES ZAITZ/The Enterprise) Ted Ozersky knows what Malheur County and Oregon could be facing. He is interim director of the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minnesota, and associate biology professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Ozersky said the quagga mussels represent “probably the biggest environmental disruption that happened to the Great Lakes in the last 100 years.” He said the mussels now are the dominant organism in Lake Michigan. They dine on microscopic algae known as phytoplankton. “They filter the water, ingesting the tiny algae,” Ozersky explained. He said estimates are that an established colony of mussels can filter an entire lake in two weeks with their “incredible filtration capacity.” Ozersky said such feeding consumes the food supply for other aquatic species. Researchers say that can harm native fish by restricting their feed. As they mature, quaggas use sticky threads to attach themselves to hard surfaces, forming large crusts. In the Great Lakes, such encrustations have sunk navigational buoys, Ozersky said. They also clog pipes used to pump water into power stations, irrigation canals and other water systems. “The fouling of structures has become a major problem along the Colorado River which supplied drinking and irrigation water through long aqueducts to major cities and farming regions of southern California, Nevada and Arizona,” according to a Texas State University report. Such fouling is a huge concern in Malheur County. Much of the local economy is driven by irrigated farms, drawing water from Lake Owyhee. Flynn, the irrigation district manager, said if the quagga mussels get into the lake, “it would probably be hard if not impossible to get them out.” With the latest discovery in Idaho, “it’s hard to believe they might not already be in the Owyhee,” Flynn said. Rembowski briefed the Malheur County Court on Wednesday, Sept. 25, about that discovery and what it could mean locally. “We’re going to have to do something about it,” said Commissioner Ron Jacobs. “We can’t have it in any of our reservoirs.” In a later interview, Rembowski said environmental conditions in Lake Owyhee are “prime” for the quagga mussel. “They would do very well if introduced at the lake.” If the mussel gets in and spreads, the agriculture industry would be faced with reduced water supplies. Flynn said dive teams would be needed to clear intakes, an expensive move that has cost millions in other parts of the U.S. Few options exist to get rid of them. “Once they are established in a system, they’re there,” said Ozersky. “You’re sort of stuck with them.” He said chemical treatment is a “Band-Aid solution” that would only work in a small lake or irrigation pond. Oregon’s environmental regulations also limit such treatments. Keith DeHart, coordinator of invasive species programs for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said other tactics include drawing down reservoirs. “None of them are one hundred percent effective,” DeHart said. “We are constantly looking for and working on better options.” Rembowski, Flynn and others are launching efforts to build an inspection station on the way to Lake Owyhee. Rembowski notes that boaters can reach the lake from many directions without ever passing the freeway inspection station. The cost of such a station hasn’t been calculated. Who will pay for it is another challenge. And then there is new staffing to operate the station. Rembowski said it likely will be months before a station could go in. A boat inspection station at the Interstate 84 rest area near Ontario operates seven days a week, dawn to dark. The inspections are key to stopping invasive species such as the quagga mussel from entering Oregon waterways. Officials hope to get a second station established on the road to Lake Owyhee. (LES ZAITZ/The Enterprise) The Ontario station now operates seven days a week, dawn to dark. Adams, who has a master’s degree in oceanography, and one other inspector are on duty. An inspection of a boat or any items that were in water takes about five minutes.  The Ontario station is equipped to wash down a boat on the spot if invasive species, including plants, are found. READ IT: Tips for cleaning your boat So far in 2024, inspections at Oregon’s three state-run stations found six watercraft with quagga mussels or another invasive, the zebra mussel. Experts say that boat inspections are the prime way to catch quagga mussels before they make it into Oregon waterways. Rembowski got approval from the county court to seek a state grant to soon launch education efforts. He and others want to turn people into quagga warriors, getting them to understand the risk of the little creatures and then what they can do to keep them out. “We want to make sure people are cleaning their boats, letting them dry,” Rembowski said. “It appears that if they have any water left in the vessel, the mussel will continue to grow.” Ozersky agrees with such preventative steps. “Moving infested boats is one of the main ways for spreading” the mussels, he said. Boat inspections remain “one of the best lines of defense,” he said. “Increasing awareness among people is important – this is coming, be aware of this and do their own inspections,” Ozersky said. A sign alerts boaters to an inspection station at the Interstate 84 rest area near Ontario on Thursday, Sept. 26. The inspections are key to stopping invasive species from entering Oregon waterways. Officials hope to get a second station established on the road to Lake Owyhee. (LES ZAITZ/The Enterprise) Contact Editor Les Zaitz: [email protected]. STORY TIP OR IDEA? Send an email to Salem Reporter’s news team: [email protected]. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. 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