Invasive species in ballast tanks/bags?

[TheHardWay]

The lakes around here and Lake Powell use hot water for decontamination of Zebra and Quagga mussels. They simply use a diesel fired pressure washer to shoot hot water into the ballast tanks via the thru-hull overflow ports. Slosh the water around, and pump back out using the pumps on the boat. If you have water in the bilge they will spray that down too.

Our lakes have gone as far as doing inspections before launching and after you load your boat back on the trailer at the end of the day. Boat owners dry they boat, pull all the plugs, and run the bilge and ballast pumps. Once the park officials see this, they will put a cable seal through the boat's bow eye and the trailer. When you return to the lake, you once again go through the inspection station. If you have the seal, you get waved through with no issue. If you don't then they will do a complete inspection and do a decontamination if you have water on board. It can be a pain in the butt to deal with, but I feel that it is worth it to try and keep our waters and protected as possible. I just wish the parks would hire staff that have a clue what they are doing. I always get asked if I have any live bait well in my Malibu....maybe it protocol for them to ask, but I just give them a blank dumbfounded look each time. Another time, a guy got in my boat after refusing to take his shoes off. He had some sort of sticky substance on the bottom of his shoe and stepped right on the seat. He got verbally abused in front of a bunch of people. It is not like me to do that because I hate to cause scenes, but I was irate and it was well worth it I went through at least a dozen different types of harsh chemicals trying to get whatever it was off the vinyl. To this day, you can still see where it was.

[oldjeep]

That is the norm at big lakes around here too. They have a kid working from the DNR who makes sure that you pulled your plug (the law in MN is that you travel with it out) - asks if you drained any livewells or ballast. Make you drop the drive to drain if you have an I/O and then the run their hands down the side of the boat looking for the snot like baby mussels. Occasionally they have a hot water spray station set up, but not very often.

[TheHardWay]

I got Asian clams in college freshman year! It was horrible.

Are you confusing Asian Clams with crabs by any chance???

[Kalamazoo]

Interesting. I wonder what temp you can get from the shower and if there's enough line to run it to the vents (boat's in storage right now). For those that are environmentally conscious, I can foresee a mod with a bypass valve that diverts hot water either from the shower or motor to the ballast fill lines. just before trailering switch the valve, fill ballasts w/hot water, swish around, run discharge pumps, pull boat. I could also envision a chemical (bleach/chlorine) injector inline as well, but that may p-off the DNR folks. Suprised that's not offered on newer models...environmentally conscious OEM's are liked quite a bit.

[Rmack]

Are you confusing Asian Clams with crabs by any chance???

Nope! Asian Clams are much worse!

[wakebrdr94]

I boat in Parker,AZ quite often, and we go through a checkpoint coming back into CA and they inspect boats. They make sure that the drain plugs have been pulled, and inspect anchor and lines.

We have a place out there with a dock, never used the anchor once during one trip, and the ranger found a dead mussel in the hinge of the box anchor. They did a decontamination of the boat, place a quarantine tag through the bow eye and the trailer and another one through the box anchor and the drivers seat base. Could not use the boat in a fresh water lake for 30 days. Then had to schedule an appt for a fish and game inspector to come to the house to verify that the boat was clean and the tags were still attached. This was with my 2002 VLX, which I would use in salt water as I lived Long beach, next to Marine stadium.

I had to plead with the inspector here in ca to let me remove the tags as I was going to use the boat in salt water (which the mussels do not survive in). He was at least cool and came out to remove the tags for me. I was not lying, I was heading to the marina. But you can be without a boat for a month if caught with these things

I have since learned to spray the anchors and docking lines with Clorox Clean up (per the ranger and inspector) I leave the anchors and ilnes in the bed of my truck, with the clorox, and let them inspect.

[TheHardWay]

The idea of running a line from the engine block/shower is a good idea, but I don't think it would be hot enough. Off the top of my head,iirc, the t-stats are 165 degrees? I checked my steam pressure washer (similar to what they are using for decontamination) and it is putting out 220 degree water. Someone mentioned 120 degree water to kill mussels. I guess it would come down to what a lethal dose is.

Then there is the issue of how much water the engine takes in and expels. Anyone who has run their boat out of the water with a fake-a-lake knows it isn't a whole lot. Even if the engine was able to heat the water hot enough, it would take forever to fill ballast.

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[tccombs]

you may not have to "fill" the balast tanks... it may be enough to just increase the temperature inside the tank just a thought.

[camcruiser13]

According to the rangers here water above 120 degrees will kill them. That is how they decontaminate our boats & ballast systems here

same here in utah

we got that quagga mussel

[tsanfilippo]

On 1/20/2014 at 1:29 PM, racer808 said:

According to the rangers here water above 120 degrees will kill them. That is how they decontaminate our boats & ballast systems here

I did this today.  Ranger asked if I wanted to do it the long way or the short was.  Long way is hook fake a lake up to each hull fitting and fill every blast tank until they over flow.  Short way - - water hose put in the vent putting water down the vent only need to fill the tanks 1/2 way.  PNP bags 20% full and step on them to get hot water on all sides.

My only concern of going in the vent, is how does the hard tank vent if water is coming in the vent (hose was a tight fit), once the water inlet is covered I would think it would build up pressure, but every time he removed the hose from the vent, there was NO back pressure shooting out, so it had to vent somewhere??

Does anyone know for sure (not opinion), if both ways are safe on the ballast system?

Thanks in advance.

[wakesonthesnake]

20 hours ago, tsanfilippo said:

Does anyone know for sure (not opinion), if both ways are safe on the ballast system?

My thought would be the water would push past the aerator pumps before it would build enough pressure to do any damage. 

[PNWoke]

I bought my boat 2 weeks ago in Utah - it was a small lake just north of ogden we selected to do a test drive on.  When the previous owner arrived with the boat they asked him where the last place the boat was used, to which he replied "lake Powell, about 3 weeks ago."  This statement triggered a full cleanout there at the ramp - apparently lake Powell has some invasive muscle they were duty bound to prevent the spread of.  Like others said, the ranger (a girl doing summer gig) used a diesel pressure washer and a fake a lake to do the whole boat, (all 3 hard tanks and engine and bilge - no PNP bags were installed).  The water temp was around 150 degrees.  She was very good, the previous owner just sat at the helm and directed the ballast pumps and engine starting/stopping and the girl did all the work.  She filled from both the ballast pump through hulls, as well as the vents, until the vents each overflowed.  It took about 8 minutes total, and cost nothing.  Previous owner said that was usually the protocol and that we were lucky there wasn't a line of boats in front of us needing the same thing.  They did nothing when we pulled out, no extra clean up or anything.