Illinois, Iowa relocating mussels in Mississippi River

MOLINE, Ill. (AP) - Divers along the Mississippi River between Illinois and Iowa have begun removing hundreds of thousands of mussels from the path of an Interstate 74 bridge project.

The Quad-City Times (http://bit.ly/2azxzmO ) reports that the two states will spend $2.4 million to remove 450,000 mussels from the site. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the mussels will be moved to new locations to make way for the $1.2 billion construction project.

The new bridge's path will impact the habitat of a variety of freshwater mussels, including three species that are federally protected. The mussels are being collected just upstream of the existing bridge.

The process began Monday. Officials say the goal is to collect up to 10,000 mussels per day.

According to officials, a 2014 survey estimated that there are 850,000 mussels in the construction area of the I-74 bridge project. Most of the mussels are on the Illinois side, but some are along the Iowa shoreline.

Heidi Woeber, a fish and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency hopes to measure the impact the move has on the mussels, and take any information learned to apply to other bridge projects that require the same kind of move.

Woeber said that officials estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 mussels will die in the process.

A separate collection and relocation of mussels is scheduled for late 2020 and early 2021 when it is time to demolish the existing bridge.

Construction of the new bridge is expected to begin next spring.

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Information from: Quad-City Times, http://www.qctimes.com