Click the link to read the article on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website (Dale Shrull). Here’s an excerpt:
October 7, 2025
As five staff members clad in Colorado Parks and Wildlife gear departed from the swim beach area [October 4, 2025], it didn’t take long for the answer to be revealed. Once the first buoy was pulled from the water, two adult mussels were found. They were sent to the lab to confirm whether they are zebra or quagga mussels. It was a bummer of a day for CPW staff.
“We did expect to see some mussels but pulling that very first buoy out and seeing the big mussel on the bottom was really disheartening,” Highline Lake State Park Manager Ashlee Wallace said. “Especially, after working so hard over the past two years.”
[…]
The discovery of the two mussels came after more than two years of various attempts to eradicate the invasive species from the lake, which had become the first and only body of water in the state to be infested with mussels in October 2022. That started a series of moves that included chemical treatments to the lake, lowering the water level 27 feet to do more chemical treatments, then during those routine end-of-season tasks, more mussels were found in October 2023. That’s when CPW made the decision to completely drain the lake in hopes of eradicating the mussels for good. With Saturday’s discovery, it’s clear that all the previous moves were for naught.
