{"id":27175,"date":"2022-12-13t19:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-13t19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.planetforward.com\/2022\/12\/13\/essay-infested-waters-a-look-into-zebra-mussels-in-otisco-lake\/"},"modified":"2024-02-22t17:12:19","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22t17:12:19","slug":"zebra-mussels-otisco-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/zebra-mussels-otisco-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"essay | infested waters: a look into zebra mussels in otisco lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
otisco lake is my second home and a truly special place, but it’s not the same as it used to be. this is where i spent huge quantities of my summers as a child swimming, tubing, camping, and doing other outdoor activities. however, otisco lake has been slowly but surely changing and it all started before i ever came along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
at first, these seemed to be positive changes as tim creamer, the president of the otisco lake preservation association described to me, saying that, \u201cfrom 2003 to 2005 the lake was crystal clear,\u201d with everyone in the community being, \u201cexcited about how clear and beautiful the lake was, but little did we know what was going to come next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
according to creamer, it all started with the introduction of the zebra mussel (dreissena polymorpha) which is a clam-like bivalve mollusk that is native to the ponto-caspian region at the division of europe and asia, in countries such as ukraine and southern russia. zebra mussels first made their way into the great lakes in 1988<\/a> from the freshwater ballast of a cargo ship and have spread rapidly to many water bodies in the eastern united states including otisco lake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n otisco lake is in onondaga county in new york and is the easternmost finger lake<\/a> and the only one that flows into the onondaga lake watershed<\/a>. the lake provides drinking water to the city of syracuse, meaning that keeping the lake clean is a priority to the local as well as state government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n to find out the approximate time that the zebra mussel made it into otisco lake, as well as the effect that it had once it was introduced, i needed to talk to someone who has lived on the lake a lot longer than me and had been observing the water quality during that time. one such person who could tell me that was my dad, david mcintyre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n my dad has lived on the lake part-time for over 55 years and told me that around 25 years ago is when he first started seeing zebra mussels in small quantities. within a few years, the population had exploded with my dad saying, \u201cit didn’t take very long to start noticing that the water was getting clearer.\u201d this is due to the zebra mussels’ status as a filter feeder in which they filter out phytoplankton, small zooplankton, and detritus from water causing it to become clearer. this causes the local algae and phytoplankton populations to decrease , both of which native species rely on for food. as the exploding population of zebra mussels continued to filter feed, the particles that blocked sunlight from penetrating to the bottom of the lake were removed allowing more macrophytes (weeds) to be able to grow<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n my dad said that he first noticed macrophytes around 10 to 15 years ago, but they have become a big problem for people on the lake, as he described the current number of them as \u201cvery significant.” when asked what issues this has caused for him as well as people on the lake he said that the weeds are so thick that people may be at risk of drowning if they get into the wrong place. he also described one time when the weeds were so thick that they got caught around the propeller of our boat which caused the engine to overheat, both potentially very dangerous situations. <\/p>\n\n\na family connection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n