LAKE TRAVIS, Texas -- Earlier this month divers inspecting the intake valves at the Handcox Water Treatment Plant at Lake Travis found zebra mussels attached to the screen. The water department began monitoring the area several years ago and last check the plant about a year ago.
- Lake Travis divers find intake valve screen 50 percent covered in zebra mussels
- Solution to the problem will be expensive
- Zebra mussels found attached to trash cleaned from lake
Zebra mussels covered 50 percent of the screen on one of the three intake valves.
"We are trying to monitor the extent on how quickly they propagate and that will help us develop a strategy for mitigating this situation," said Brian Haws, managing engineer.
The city has an annual contract of $212,000 to inspect the three water intake areas at Lake Travis and Lake Austin. Divers will begin inspecting these areas few times a year.
The city is also working with a consulting firm to find a more permanent solution to the problem, which will likely be expensive.
"It will be significant. Those numbers will be available once we chose our strategy," Haws said.
The water department doesn't expect any increases in rates due to the invasive species. They will be fixing the problem as part of the department's preventative maintenance costs.
There is no timeline yet for completion of the zebra mussel mitigation plan.
Data shows that the majority of materials collected from inside Lake Travis last weekend for the annual cleanup had to be thrown away rather than recycled because of zebra mussels.
Lake Travis Cleanup yields zebra-mussel-covered trash
Every year, Travis County Parks, The Colorado River Alliance, and Keep Austin Beautiful host the Lake Travis Cleanup. Volunteers pick up trash from the shoreline and divers find trash inside the lake.
"This year, we had an abundance of zebra mussels on the materials collected by scuba divers," said Shaun Auckland, conservation coordinator with Travis County.
According to the data, 839.5 pounds of aluminum cans, glass bottles, and plastics were thrown away this year. Only 62 pounds were able to be recycled.
In 2017, 415 pounds of material was recycled and 173.85 ended up in the landfill.
"When I first saw the numbers, It's disappointing how much our lake has a future and changing," Auckland said.
The data is a skewed this year because zebra mussels add more weight to the items collected.