Teen invents 'goo' to thwart quagga mussels

By: the Ventura County Star, Zeke Barlow
April 8, 2008

She spent hours formulating and mixing the concoction that she hopes will stop quagga mussels from clinging to pipes by the thousands and damaging water delivery systems.

Millions of dollars have been spent fighting quagga mussels in the Midwest and millions more have been allocated to fight the invasive mussel since it was first detected last year in the West. But this researcher is hoping her mix — she calls it "goo" — which costs under $5 a gallon to make could solve much of the problem.

The inventor is not a doctorate-level scientist or an employee of a state environmental agency.

She's 14-year-old, french-fry-loving, giggly and precocious Brenna Callero, and she just may have the cure for the common quagga mussel.

Or, at the very least, she's got a good project for this year's science fair, called Don't Move a Mussel.

"I love science," said Brenna, a ninth-grader at La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks. She also likes golf, AC/DC, history, sailing and a slew of other things, but for now she is focused on the tiny quagga mussels and her gloppy creation to keep them at bay.

The professionals paid to study the issue are impressed.

"At this point we are taking her very seriously," said Mike Giusti, a fisheries biologist who is tackling the problem for the California Department of Fish and Game. Quagga mussels can produce 1 million offspring a year. They spread rapidly, altering ecosystems by eating away the bottom of the food chain. For water agencies, the larger concern is the mussels' ability to cause millions of dollars in damage by virtually enveloping pipes and infrastructure.

For Brenna, it all started with a few mosquito bites on the fairway.

Brenna, who is determined to try out for the Ladies Professional Golf Association, was tired of being bitten by mosquitoes when she was golfing. For her science project last year, she developed a solution that kills mosquito larvae. She consulted a flower book to see which plants may be mosquito detractors, crushed a bunch of marigolds and lemon rinds, and before long her mixture was killing mosquito larvae.

For entire article, as well as the website's interactive map of the spread of these mussels in So. CA, please visit the website.