As fall begins, many visitors at Lake Tahoe will stick around to soak up the last days of summer, but there’s one visitor that’s stuck around longer than they should: Golden Mussels.
Several new cleaning stations called “CD3 Outpost Blue,” located at Baldwin Beach, and along Fallen Leaf Lake were recently installed in an effort to prevent the introduction of the species at Lake Tahoe. The new cleaning stations allow visitors to easily clean, dry and dispose of any traces of golden mussels on their gear.
Chris Joseph with Keep Tahoe Blue said golden mussels populations have exploded across California since 2024, with six detections reported at Lake Tahoe this summer. Golden mussels reproduce rapidly, and have already started to impact water infrastructure, costing millions of dollars in damage, he said.
“A single individual can produce a million offspring in one year, and each individual golden mussel is very tiny but super hardy, so they can attach to basically anything,” Joseph said.
Golden mussels can survive outside of Tahoe’s cold, clear water for up to a week, and can attach themselves to kayaks, floaties, fishing gear and more.
While Lake Tahoe's boat inspection programs have been effective, Joseph said it's an all-hands-on-deck effort to help prevent the spread of golden mussels and other invasive species.
“Lake Tahoe, being such a delicate ecosystem, it's important to keep all aquatic invasive species out of the lake because if they get in here, it will rapidly increase the rate where our beautiful blue lake turns green,” he said.
For anyone planning to visit the lake, they’re strongly encouraged to thoroughly clean, drain, and dry any piece of gear before it touches the water.
