As part of its ongoing fight against zebra mussels, the Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District is building a facility to inject a low-impact, concentrated copper ion solution to attack any larvae that have passed through at Lake Georgetown.
"It's a very simple system," BCMUD General Manager Shean Dalton said. "It's a small well and inside that well is a copper rod, and it's in a solution... and there is a little pump, a control system, and, from there, it's the safe delivery of the copper ion solution."
It is part of a project to combat the mussels that began in June 2021 with the replacement of six out of nine aluminum water intake screens with copper-coated screens and is expected to be complete by July according to BCMUD Parks and Recreation Manager Betsy Schultz.
"It is a very minute amount of copper needed; we operate at 5 parts per billion when the federal copper rule allows up to 1,300 parts per billion for drinking water," said Tom Caponi, a project manager for MRB Group, the firm overseeing the $1.8 million project to mitigate the impact of zebra mussels in BCMUD's water supply.
