![]() ![]() These recommendations are intended to inform decision-making to provide increased capacity and clear direction that empowers the further implementation of a collaborative and coordinated multi-jurisdictional regional strategy to prevent the spread of quagga and zebra mussels in the West. Newly infested waters, increased boating pressure, and gained public and political awareness drove the need for the Western Regional Panel to acknowledge and learn from the past and set forth a new collective path towards the future. The urgency and the need for such a coordinated approach remain as important today as ever before. The purpose of QZAP 2.0 is to provide a systematic and unified approach to prevent the spread of zebra and quagga mussels into and within the western United States in the future. The original QZAP action items have guided prevention, containment, research, and management to address the ecological and economic impacts of invasive quagga and zebra mussels since 2009. The Western Regional Panel prepared Quagga and Zebra Mussel Action Plan 2.0 to inform ongoing management and partnership efforts intended to minimize the spread and impacts from zebra and quagga mussels in the western United States. This report provides information on the Corps' Watercraft Inspection and Decontamination Program and its role in helping to prevent the introduction or spread of quagga and zebra mussels-the aquatic invasive species of greatest concern to the Corps-as well as program challenges and opportunities for improvement. GAO was asked to examine efforts the Corps has undertaken to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species into the Columbia River Basin by recreational watercrafts. Once established in a water body, the mussel species are extremely difficult to eradicate because they have no natural predators in the U.S. The mussels typically are spread by recreational watercraft such as boats, canoes, and Jet Skis that have been in infested waters. except the Columbia River Basin in the northwest. Army Corps of Engineers officials, have spread to every major river basin in the U.S. Quagga and zebra mussels have spread rapidly across the country since they were first discovered in the late 1980s and, according to U.S. ![]()
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