Down the sloping banks of Columbus Township's Belle River Roadside Park, a team of researchers and volunteers sloshed through the water wearing wet suits or waders earlier this month.
They'd spent the morning looking for mussels in the river, moving them to another section of the river due to plans for a habitat rehabilitation project. The effort had turned up nearly 2,000 mussels by last Friday, with more passes to go before the survey and relocation is complete.
The habitat restoration project involves restoring the balance between runs, riffles and pools in the river ecosystem. The includes clearing debris from the water and fixing erosion issues along the banks. This work will involve some construction equipment, so the mussels are being moved to different stretches of the river to keep them safe. In May 2019, Columbus Township got a nearly $450,000 grant through the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' Aquatic Habitat Grants Program for the work.
Dan Symonds, a Stantec aquatic biologist, and James Kiser, a Stantec senior biologist, sorted through a pile of mussels on a rock near the riverbank. Symonds came from Columbus, Ohio and Kiser from Whitley City, Kentucky to work through the Belle River in search of its mussels. Stantec is a professional services company that works in the architecture and engineering industries, and is helping carry out the mussel relocation.
"I've done a lot of mussel surveys in some of the best streams in North America," Kiser said. "And for this size of stream, not necessarily the diversity, but for just the pure density of mussels, this is one of the better streams I've been in."
READ: Nearly $450K awarded to rehab Belle River Roadside Park
Mussels are typically buried in the soil with a corner poking out of the top. The team mostly operates by sight and touch in the clear waters of the Belle River, but other projects might mean donning scuba gear and searching through brown, muddy water, Symonds said.
The team has identified about 13 species, which Symonds said is pretty high in terms of diversity. There are about 300 species of mussels in North America, about ⅔ of which are in danger, Symonds said.
"They're not your cute cuddly panda or tiger, so a people don't really know about them," Symonds said. "But 2/3 of species are threatened or endangered, that's pretty high."
Mussels are filter feeders, meaning they draw water through themselves to absorb nutrients. Because of this, a strong mussel population is associated with clean water. A sudden downturn of a mussel population could be a sign water is contaminated.
"They're acting as your Brita filter for the river," Symonds said. "They're also considered the canary in the coal mine because they're filter feeders.
"If you come in and all your mussels are dead one day, that probably means something happened upstream that's not good."
Any threatened or endangered mussels discovered by the team have a transponder glued to them, so the population can be monitored.
The Stantec biologists were assisted by volunteers with Friends of the St. Clair River, who helped sort for through the water in search of mussels.
"When you're around people that are so knowledgeable and passionate about it, and you understand their importance, it gets you excited about them also," Friends of the St. Clair River President Sheri Faust said.
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Contact Jeremy Ervin at (810) 989-6273 or jervin@gannett.com.Follow him on Twitter @ErvinJeremy.
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