A new call is being made to protect BC’s borders from a potentially expensive and painful ecological invader.

The Shuswap Watershed Council has fired off a letter to the provincial government, calling for immediate action to protect BC’s fresh water areas from Zebra and Quagga mussels.

“Pipes is the biggest concern,” Erin Vieira with the Council told Radio NL.  “What we would start to see is infestations in hydroelectric facilities, in water intake pipes for agriculture, for irrigation.”

Vieira says their increased concern lies in the recent discovery of the mussels in northern Idaho, warning if they get into BC, they’re going to extremely expensive to get rid of.

“It would cost us between 64 and 129 million dollars in BC every year to deal with the impacts,” notes Vieira.  “That cost will be borne by taxpayers, property owners and business owners.”

On top of the economic concern, Vieira says there will also be a social impact if the Mussels take hold in the Shuswap and other parts of BC.

“When they die, their shells can wash up on beaches and the beaches can become covered in these little sharp shells,” warns Vieira.  “So you can forget about laying on the sand or walking on beaches.”

The Shuswap Watershed Council is calling on the province to establish permanent, year-round boat inspections at border crossings from both the United States and Alberta.

“It is of utmost importance that the IMDP [Invasive Mussels Defense Program] be expanded such that all routes into BC from Alberta and the USA have a watercraft inspection and decontamination station and that all watercraft coming into BC be inspected,” said the Shuswap Watershed Council in its letter to various BC government ministers.

“Staffing at the inspection stations should be increased so that the stations can be operational year-round, 24 hours/day. It will take just a single infested watercraft launching into BC waters to start a new population of invasive mussels here.”