SRP to Host Quagga Mussel Training Event

Free Session will Offer Hands-On Watercraft Inspection Exercise

Phoenix, AZ - Salt River Project will host a “Don’t Move a Mussel” Watercraft and Equipment Inspection and Decontamination Training event at its PERA Club recreation facility in Tempe. The free training event is open to state, federal and local natural resource and boating agency personnel as well as boaters who want to learn the special precautions about how to properly drain, clean and dry their watercraft.

Participants will receive training from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission on how to intercept, inspect, detain and decontaminate trailered watercraft and equipment suspected of carrying mussels as well as a hands-on watercraft-inspection exercise.

When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday Nov. 20th at the SRP PERA Club, 1 E. Continental Drive, Tempe.

The training event supports SRP’s goal to keep invasive quagga mussels from infecting reservoirs on the Salt and Verde rivers. Adult quagga mussels were discovered about a year ago at the head of the SRP water-delivery system at the interconnect channel that delivers Central Arizona Project water to the SRP canals. Those mussels found at the CAP/SRP Interconnect moved down from Lake Pleasant, which, along with the Colorado River, is a water source for the CAP canal. No more mussels have been found in the SRP water-delivery system since that initial discovery in 2008.

Technorati Tags: Arizona, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, Phoenix, quagga mussels, Salt River Project, SRP, Tempe