Boise (670 KBOI News) – Summer’s here and the time is right for hitching up the boat and heading down to Lake Powell or Lake Mead for some fishing or skiing.
But Idaho Power is reminding you to be careful you don’t bring hitchhikers home to Idaho on your boat’s hull…quagga mussels.
They’re asking you to remember to clean, drain and dry your boat — anything from a kayak to a 100-foot yacht — before you load it up and bring it back to Idaho.
Quagga and zebra mussels are tiny shelled mollusks, which attach to boat hulls, and can spread to other bodies of water if they’re not cleaned off.
Idaho Power is concerned that the mussels, if they spread to the Snake River, could get into their hydroelectric dams and wreak havoc.
In the West, quagga mussels are in California, Nevada and Arizona. Zebra mussels have turned up in California and North Dakota.
