PHOTO OP-ED: Shells left behind by an army of invaders

An audience that nearly filled the Port Washington-Saukville Performing Arts Center on Friday viewed dramatic evidence of the assault on the Great Lakes by quagga mussels as recorded by state-of-the-art underwater photography in the film entitled “All Too Clear.” The next day, physical evidence of the immensity of the invasive species’ presence—heaping windrows of quagga mussel shells—was recorded by an Ozaukee Press photographer on a Town of Port Washington beach. Video images in “All Too Clear,” a title inspired by the fact that every drop of Lake Michigan water is filtered repeatedly by quadrillions of mussels, showed a lake bottom covered by a thick carpet of mollusks. The clarity of the water is itself a threat to lake ecosystems by stimulating algae explosions, but the mussels’ most devastating impact is depleting the microorganisms that are essential to the food chain of native fish, resulting in the decimation of whitefish and other populations. Scientists appearing in the film expressed little hope the mussels will ever be controlled.                Ozaukee Press photo