TWINE2 0 0 9 W I N T E R / S P R I N G E D I T I O N V O L . 3 1 / N O . 1 LINE STRIPED INVADERS Lake Erie’s 20-Year Battle with Zebra Mussels ATMOSPH ND ER A IC IC A N D A M E I C N O I S L T A R N A T O I I O T N A N U E .S . C D R E E P M A M RT O MENT OF C TABLE OF TWINELINE OHIO SEA GRANT The Ohio State University 1314 Kinnear Rd. Columbus, OH 43212-1156 Phone: 614.292.8949 Fax: 614.292.4364 CONTENTS ohioseagrant.osu.edu 2 0 0 9 W I N T E R / S P R I N G E D I T I O N V O L . 3 0 / N O . 2 OHIO SEA GRANT STAFF Dr. Jeffrey M. Reutter, Director [email protected] Dr. Rosanne W. Fortner, Education Coordinator Page [email protected] Jill Jentes Banicki, Striped Invaders ...........................................................................................3 Assistant Director [email protected] Combining Politics and Partnerships ...........................................................6 Eugene Braig, Assistant Director Dredging Up the Polluted Past .....................................................................8 [email protected] Stacy Brannan, Associate Editor From the Discussion Board ..........................................................................9 [email protected] Nancy Cruickshank, New Research Projects .........................................................................10-11 Publications Manager [email protected] Negative Result, Positive Outcome George Oommen, System Engineer Rounding Up the Evidence [email protected] Rick Shaffer, Business Manager Stone Lab 2009 Summer Courses ..............................................................12 [email protected] FOSL ......................................................................................................13-15 John Tripp, Fiscal Manager [email protected] Student Spotlight: Gracia Ng Greg Aylsworth, Designer Volunteers Needed [email protected] Buckeye Island Hop EXTENSION AGENTS Winter Program and Silent Auction Frank R. Lichtkoppler*, Lake & Ashtabula Counties 440.350.2582 [email protected] Fred L. Snyder*, Ottawa County 419.635.1022 [email protected] *Program Co-Coordinators Heather Elmer, Ohio Coastal Training Program 419.433.4601 Check out [email protected] Tory Gabriel, Fisheries Program Coordinator 440.808.5627 our new look! [email protected] John R. Hageman, Jr., Ottawa County stonelab.osu.edu 614.247.6500 [email protected] Melinda Huntley, Tourism Director 419.609.0399 Pg. 14 [email protected] Twine Line (ISSN 1064-6418) is published four times a year by the Ohio Sea Grant David O. Kelch, College Program at The Ohio State University, 1314 Kinnear Rd., Columbus, OH 43212- Erie & Lorain Counties 1156. Subscription price is $10.00 per year (four issues). The opinions expressed 440.326.5851 are those of the authors only. Please contact the office to obtain permission before [email protected] reprinting articles or graphics. Ohio Sea Grant is a statewide program that supports greater knowledge and stewardship of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes. It is part of the Joe Lucente, Lucas County NOAA Sea Grant College Program (NOAA grant NA16RG2252, project M/P-2), which 419.213.4254 includes 32 state programs. Support of Ohio Sea Grant is provided by National Sea [email protected] Grant, the State of Ohio, The Ohio State University, Ohio State University Extension, and participating universities, agencies, and businesses. Matt Thomas, Stone Laboratory 419.285.1846 Cover photo by Todd Moon, www.toddmoon.com [email protected] Colleen Wellington, 2 TWINELINE 2009 WINTER/SPRING EDITION Ohio Clean Marinas Coordinator 419.609.4120 [email protected] STRIPED INVADERS Lake Erie’s 20-Year Battle with Zebra Mussels by Stacy Brannan, Ohio Sea Grant Communications Since their invasion in the late 1980s, zebra mussels have all but eliminated native mussels by attaching to their shells, inhibiting their movement, and competing with them for food. ore than 180 different aquatic Assistant Director of the program, received determine where they came from and how invasive species, most introduced the first zebra mussel research grant. to prevent additional invasions, and outline M as a byproduct of the shipping “Garton made a very convincing case of the the mussels’ adverse impact on Lake Erie’s industry, can be found in the Great Lakes’ kinds of problems zebra mussels had caused ecosystem. six quadrillion gallons of fresh water. Some in Europe, where it had lived for hundreds “It turned out that our lake was zebra live in relatively small numbers, causing of years, and the kinds of potential problems mussel heaven,” Reutter explains. “It’s the little trouble. Others come onto the scene it could cause in this country,” recalls Dr. southernmost, shallowest, and warmest of and wreak havoc on the food web, pushing Jeff Reutter, Director of Ohio Sea Grant and the five Great Lakes, and they were far more aside or completely eliminating native species Stone Lab. “I have to admit, I was skeptical productive here than they had been in Europe.” to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. because we’d had a scare with Asiatic clams In fact, the difference was stark. Whereas the Sometimes this damage happens seemingly just a few years before, and the clams didn’t mussels in European waters were laying 50,000 overnight. That was the case with the zebra turn out to be a huge problem.” eggs per year and reaching sexual maturity mussel. But within a year the zebra mussel in three to five years, Garton and another Sea The first recorded discovery of zebra population in Lake Erie had exploded Grant researcher, Ohio State University’s Dr. mussels in Lake Erie took place at Stone to a density of 30,000 individuals per David Culver, determined they were laying 1 Laboratory on October 15, 1988, when a few square meter—far more than anyone had million eggs per year in Lake Erie and reaching were found attached to a dock that was being predicted—and Sea Grant began its work maturity in 11 months. taken out of the lake for off-season storage. in earnest. The next decade saw funding With that kind of rapid growth, it wasn’t Ohio Sea Grant’s response was immediate: awarded to search for ways to control zebra long before water treatment and nuclear within a month, Dr. Dave Garton, then- mussels and the cost of those solutions, power plants came to Sea Grant, asking TWINELINE 2009 WINTER/SPRING EDITIONEDITION 3 for help with the large numbers of mussels championed by Ohio Sea Grant to specifically Fish and Wildlife Service, the Great Lakes blocking their water intake pipes, sometimes address zebra mussels, has remained in place Commission, and the National Oceanic and causing complete shutdowns of the facilities. since then, now expanded to cover aquatic Atmospheric Administration. In all, the An effective control strategy was urgently invasive species throughout the country. groups determined that zebra mussels were needed, and Reutter asked Dr. Gary Floyd, But federal funding came with some costing the region $5-10 billion per year—a the Dean of Ohio State’s College of Biological expectations: Congress wanted a price tag hefty sum for a problem that would require Sciences, for help in finding a researcher to to put on the problem. How much money additional research and legislation to keep tackle the issue. was being lost because of zebra mussels? under control. That help came in the form of Dr. Susan Sea Grant could answer a small piece of that “At this point, zebra mussels were pretty Fisher, a toxicologist in and now Chair of puzzle because of its respected, established much limited to Lake St. Clair and Lake the Department of Entomology, who at relationships with the plants, facilities, and Erie, but there was no way to prevent their the time knew nothing at all about zebra factories with water intakes on Lake Erie. expansion,” Reutter says. “We needed mussels or mollusks. In 1993, Leroy Hushak, then-Associate our researchers to track their spread and “I was not the obvious person to be doing Director for Ohio Sea Grant, set out to determine where they came from so we could any of this, but I did have some experience in toxicity testing, so I agreed to see what we could do,” Fisher explains. She started by adopting the methodologies of the Environmental Protection Agency, which included the use of standard reference water. The plan was to get the mussels acclimated to the water and then add toxins to see what could be used to kill them, but the testing never got that far. “We put them in the standard reference water, and they all died,” recounts Fisher. After many more attempts with the same results, it was clear that something in this typically benign water was, in fact, toxic to zebra mussels. That thing turned out to be potassium. “It was a great discovery because potassium permanganate was already being used as a treatment in pipes to prevent corrosion,” she says. “The permits to use it were already in place.” The first International Zebra Mussel Research Conference in 1990, held in Columbus and organized Water treatment plants and nuclear power by Ohio Sea Grant, discussed recent discoveries and ongoing projects related to the mussel’s biology, facilities only had to move the chemical impacts on the ecosystem, and economic repercussions, in addition to monitoring techniques and control alternatives. injection point back to the water intake crib and the problem was solved. Fisher announced this discovery in 1990 at the first discern the total amount power plants see what other species are there and what’s ever International Zebra Mussel Research were spending annually on such things as likely to end up in Lake Erie.” Conference, held in Columbus and organized damages, maintenance, cleaning, control, Ohio Sea Grant scientist Dr.