Roadside boat inspection stations eyed at Tahoe

RENO - Boat inspection stations designed to keep invasive mussels out of Lake Tahoe's pure, blue waters would be moved from launches to roadsides under a proposal being considered by the two-state agency charged with protecting the lake's environment.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's governing board thinks stations along entry highways to the Tahoe basin would provide a better line of defense against quagga and zebra mussels.

TRPA staffers said they have heard reports of some boaters using makeshift launches to avoid having their boats checked, and the roadside stations would make it more difficult to escape inspections.

The agency is trying to keep nonnative mussels that attach to a boat's hull in other waters from becoming established and ruining Tahoe's delicate ecosystem.

"It may be the best way to make sure all of the boats are inspected," TRPA spokesman Dennis Oliver said. "We don't have an answer to whether it's feasible, but there's a great deal of interest in possibly going in this direction."

The proposal would involve 24-hour staffing of stations along U.S. 50 in California and Nevada, and along Nevada Routes 431 and 207, and California Routes 89 and 267.

Board members did not take action at a meeting this past week but directed staff to report back with more information in August.

"What we're doing is effective, but its porous," Douglas County Commissioner Nancy McDermid said. "It only takes one slipping through to have an impact we don't want on the lake."

The biggest obstacle is the cost, which is still unknown, Oliver said.

"It's not the cheapest option," he said. "The board likes the idea and wants more details about what it would take to accomplish it."

In the meantime, the agency is exploring a proposal to conduct inspections at two or three centralized locations around the lake instead of the 15 public and private launches now being used. The plan, which could take effect next summer, would speed up the process for boaters.

Some 6,300 boats were inspected at the lake from May 1 to July 8. Of those, 470 were decontaminated, and 10 found to have mussels were not launched.

A report prepared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded an infestation of mussels at the lake would mean an economic loss of $22 million a year.