Scientists Hurry to Save Lab-Grown Mussel Species That Can Purify Waterways

Saving the endangered Appalachian monkeyface mussel in a high-stakes race. Fifty years after the Clean Water Act was passed, mussels grown in laboratories are starting to resume their unheralded mission of purifying waterways.

Sense of Urgency

Tim Lane believed he knew every one of the Powell River's 195 kilometers. He spent a lot of time wading in its rapid, chilly waters and those of the adjacent Clinch River while wearing waders and wet suits. Lane served as the Southwest Virginia Freshwater Mussel Recovery Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. He was looking for the Appalachian monkeyface mussel, a tiny, brown bivalve unique to our planet and just a drought or oil spill away from extinction.

Over tens of millions of years, the Powell and the Clinch carved huge gashes into the ancient sandstone and shale of the Appalachian Mountains, resulting in two of North America's most biodiverse rivers. More freshwater mussels (50 species) and fish (100 species) call the Clinch River home than any other river in the world, including smallmouth bass, walleye, and many minnows and darters.

These waterways' abundant mussel diversity gave rise to such imaginative names as three-horned wartyback, Carolina heelsplitter, rough pigtoe, and wavy-rayed lampmussel.

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Once Blooming Population

But the mussels that originally populated these Edenic rivers in the Southeast of the United States, which may live for more than a century, have been removed. Rivers have deteriorated over the past century due to mining and industrial pollution, dam development, and other factors, endangering mussels and other natural marvels.

The Clean Water Act, passed 50 years ago today, is to thank for the resurgence of riparian life in the area. Even the rarest species in each stream can survive thanks to decades-long efforts to enhance the water quality in specific stretches. We now have optimism that our efforts have not been and won't be in vain, adds Lane.

However, the Appalachian monkeyface mussels' predicament is still terrible. Lane claims that only a small number of them are in Powell's Riffles, which are located just to the north of the line dividing Virginia from Tennessee. These mussels "aren't only one of the rarest," he claims. "We're talking about one of the most endangered species today."

He continues, "so many of these species are simply holding on by a thread, including the monkeyface mussel." They are unsung heroes who "truly inform us about the quality of our rivers," acting as "a canary in the coal mine for humans."

Often Ignored

Mussels are simple to miss, but doing so is a mistake, according to Todd Amacker, a conservation scientist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. He refers to the underappreciated function of bivalves in removing silt, poisons, and other contaminants from water to find food by saying, "They're the livers of the rivers."

Lane hopes that the Aquatic Wildlife Conservation Center, near Marion, Virginia, would enable intense propagation efforts so that monkeyface mussels might reclaim their previous status in the wild.

But first, Lane and his little group of freshwater mussel lovers had to find some so they could reproduce and be prolific. They searched for nine people for 1,100 hours over four years until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved their return to the breeding facility.