‘Largest-ever decontamination’ B.C. personnel locate vessel from eastern Canada contaminated with mussels

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy says inspectors with the Conservation Officer Service successfully decontaminated a barge of invasive mussels on Saturday after learning it was heading to the Lower Mainland from Lake Ontario.

This is reportedly the ministry’s largest-ever decontamination after inspectors tracked down a trucking company and a barge being transported in two 12-metre sections.

The barge was redirected to a warehouse in Richmond, where it was decontaminated using specialized equipment to remove thousands of invasive mussels during approximately 10 hours of work in two days.

The ministry issued a mandatory 30-day quarantine period for the barge, which ended this week.

“This was the largest, most significant discovery of zebra mussels on a watercraft our teams had ever experienced,” said COS Insp. Dave Webster. “To decontaminate the vessel, we required a specialized operational plan and space due to the sheer size.”

(Courtesy: BC Conservation Officer Service / Twitter)

The ministry says many of the mussels could have multiplied in B-C waters and overtaken native species, but that has never happened in the province.

“Zebra mussels might be smaller than a fingernail, but they cause huge problems if they invade lakes and streams. Not only can they clog water pipes and ruin boat engines, they can cause significant damage to the aquatic ecosystems that sustain local plant and wildlife species,” said Josie Osborne, Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship.

Some of the mussel samples, the ministry says, will be used to train the German shepherds Kilo and Major who will be deployed as detecting dogs.

According to the ministry, the Invasive Mussel Defense Program conducted 33,000 inspections in 2021, of which 244 were deemed to be high risk. Additionally, it stated that 100 decontamination orders had been given out and that 18 watercraft had been given quarantine periods in order to complete the necessary drying time.