Mark, does it come from the Tawakoni city water or another pump? I've never heard of them in the chlorinated and treated water supply, but if they survive that, then that's big time trouble for everybody. Just read the pdf. Does your water come from Lavon?
Al the free tap we have is from the water line that runs from Lake Tawakoni water to the Wills Point Water Suply. It dates back to when they ran the water supply pipe to the City of Wills Point and crossed over our land and gave each land owner a "free tap" for life. Pretty nice having FREE water for life. But that water must be "Zebra Free"!....ha ha
I e-mailed today the Texas Parks & Wildlife guy that wrote the article I linked...and good gravy he already answered my e-mail. Texas Parks & Wildlife RULES! That is awesome customer service to respond within an hour! Here is the e-mail we exchanged this afternoon: His answers are in BOLD.
Dear Brian,
I read your recent article about Zebra Mussel DNA being found in Lake Tawakoni. We have some property a few miles away from Lake Tawakoni in Wills Point, Tx. We have a water tap for Lake Tawakoni water that dates back to when they ran the water supply pipe to the City of Wills Point and crossed over our land.
My question is do Zebra Mussels affect small ponds in exactly the same way they do large rivers and lakes?
If they became established in your pond then yes they would impact it much the same as a larger reservoir. However, there are certain environmental conditions that need to be met in order for them to survive or thrive. One is temperature so if you pond is fairly shallow and gets up to around 32 degrees C throughout the water column then they probably wouldn�t survive. Another one is calcium, if your water is soft and doesn�t have at least 10-12 mg/L concentration of calcium then they may not survive because there wouldn�t be enough calcium for them to develop their shells or at least it would keep their numbers down Should we be concerned about Zebra Mussels coming thru the water supply pipe and invading our 4 acre pond?
As of right now we don�t have any confirmation that a zebra mussel population is established in Lake Tawakoni, just because we had a positive PCR hit for their DNA it doesn�t mean the lake is infested or that a population has become established.Or do they treat or block the Zebra at the point where the pipe intersects the lake so the Zebra does not get into the water supply pipe going for treatment in Wills Point?
I don�t know if they treat their water at the intake or not, more than likely they don�t, but that would be a good question for the City of Wills Point. Texas Parks & Wildlife
Inland Fisheries
Management Region 2
Brian Van Zee, Regional DirectorE-mail:
[email protected]1601 E. Crest Dr.
Waco, Texas 76705
Telephone (254) 867-7974
