MINNETONKA, Minn. -- Nothing says summer like a day on the water, ten thousand reasons to love our state.
"What do people love about living in Minnesota?" said Telly Mamayek of the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District. "The lakes."
But those lakes and that love are at risk, with a water pest as small as a fingernail causing problems so big.
Zebra mussels drain a lake's nutrients, clog boat intakes and ruin beaches. And once they're in a lake, they're there forever.
"Zebra mussels are a huge issue, a great threat to Lake Minnetonka and to all our lakes in Minnesota," Mamayek said.
David Gondeck-Becker can barely believe it. A longtime Minnetonka boater, today he saw a new, unwelcome guest at the lake he's loved for years.
"That's zebra mussels stuck to the milfoil," Gondeck-Becker said as he pulled weeds from his pontoon. "This is very unusual. I've never seen this. That's amazing. In the year since they discovered them last year to see this? It threw me off."
And local experts, too. In just a year the mussels have spread from a small part of lake's east side in Wayzata Bay to nearly every part of Lake Minnetonka.
"They are beginning to appear all over, unfortunately," said Mamayek. "So that's why it's important to take those precautions to ensure they don't spread to other lakes."
Those precautions urge boaters to clean, drain and dry their boats every time they're moved between lakes, since just one boater and one zebra mussel can ruin a lake forever.
"It only takes one with this stuff," Mamayek said.
(Copyright 2011 by KARE and The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)