page_title: Limnoperna fortunei
section_title: Impacts on human activities
hierarchical_section_title: Limnoperna fortunei / Impacts on human activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Grate at the raw water intake of a power plant clean (left), and fouled by Limnoperna fortunei (right)
context_page_description: Limnoperna fortunei, the golden mussel, is a medium-sized freshwater bivalve mollusc of the family Mytilidae. The native range of the species is China, but it has accidentally been introduced to South America and several Asian countries where it has become an invasive species. It is considered to be an ecosystem engineer because it alters the nature of the water and the bottom habitats of lakes and rivers and modifies the associated invertebrate communities. It also has strong effects on the properties of the water column, modifying nutrient proportions and concentrations, increasing water transparency, decreasing phytoplankton and zooplankton densities, on which it feeds, and enhancing the growth of aquatic macrophytes. Because mussels attach to hard substrata, including the components of industrial, water-treatment and power plants, they have become a major biofouling problem in the areas invaded.
context_section_description: As opposed to its effects on the environment, those on man-made structures are clearly negative. The mussel has caused severe fouling problems in both Asia and in South America. The facilities affected include power plants (nuclear, hydroelectric, thermal), water and wastewater processing plants, refineries, steel mills, fish culture installations, water transfer canals and aqueducts, watercraft, agricultural irrigation systems, balancing reservoirs and balancing tanks. The plant components that are most commonly fouled by the mussels are pipes, heat exchangers and condensers, strainers, filters, trash racks, grates, screens, penstocks, pumps, nozzles, and sprinklers, vent lines, and air release valves, fire protection equipment, grit chambers, flocculators, holding ponds, storage tanks, pump suction chambers, pump wells, water intake tunnels, pump and turbine shafts, seals, and wear rings, boat engines (cooling water ducts, filters, pumps) and submerged rudder and propulsion components, sand filtration systems, submerged monitoring instrumentation, and level gauges. The problems involved include clogging by living mussels or by dead, dislodged shells, pressure loss, overheating, corrosion, abrasion and wear, jamming of moving components, sealing failures, deterioration of metal, concrete and other materials, and sediment accumulation. However, objective estimates of the economic losses involved are practically unavailable. Fouling by L. fortunei has not caused a single definitive plant shutdown. Nevertheless, operation at below-standard regimes and even temporary plant shutoffs have often been reported. Numerous fouling control methods have been proposed and tested, either in laboratory conditions only, or in actual operating environments. These include antifouling materials and coatings, manual/mechanical cleaning, filtration, chemical treatments, thermal shock, anoxia and hypoxia, desiccation, ozonation, ultraviolet treatment, electric currents, ultrasound, manipulations of flow speed, biological control, and various miscellaneous methods.
caption: Grate at the raw water intake of a power plant clean (left), and fouled by Limnoperna fortunei (right)
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