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How The West Was Warned
Wen Baldwin, a volunteer with the National Park service, pulls a non-stick teflon frying pan out of Lake Mead, the reservoir of Hoover Dam. Quagga mussels smothered the pan in a matter of weeks. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
A tiny aquatic pest called the quagga mussel is invading lakes and streams across the country. It's even clogging up pipes in some big-city water systems, dams, and power plants. When environmental disaster strikes, sometimes people scratch their heads and ask: how could this happen? Shawn Allee reports, in the case of one quagga mussel invasion, people got plenty of warning:
A related story on the quagga and the West
Info on the quagga mussel from USGS
Producer: Shawn Allee
Release Date: June 22, 2009
Running Time: 3:39