During Arvin-Edison Water District’s winter maintenance workers confirmed detection of golden mussels in their systems. The golden mussel is an invasive species from China that was first detected in California in October 2024. It has been spreading throughout the state with more and more locations reporting findings of the invasive species. The small mussels form massive colonies, clogging infrastructure. The district has been power washing, which hasn’t been successful, and manual scraping, which is effective, but time consuming. Samuel Blue, resource manager for the district, said chemical treatments would have to be done for a long period of time, between 12 to 30 days.