Building the Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership

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Building the Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership
Progress Update for a Candidate Fish Habitat
Partnership

• Rob Simmonds, USFWS, Carterville Fisheries
  Resource Office
• Matthew Patterson and Catherine Gatenby, USFWS,
• White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery
• Maureen Gallagher, USFWS, Region 3 Coordinator
  NFHAP
• Tom Jones, Marshall University
• Barbara Douglas, USFWS,
• West Virginia Field Office
• Richard Cogen, Ohio River Foundation

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Mission
The Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership (ORB)
seeks to conserve and restore overall stream
health through voluntary grass-roots based
improvements in watershed management and
in-stream habitat conservation. ORB will use
mussel populations to focus our efforts given
their unique role in maintaining water quality
and healthy fish populations for the benefit of
the American people.
Greenbrier River at Sharps Tunnel. Photo
courtesy G.P. Cooper
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Guiding Principles of the Partnership

• Restore physical watershed and stream health for
  the betterment of aquatic species and those who
  use these resources for recreation, subsistence,
  and/or drinking water.
• Focal watersheds determined by identifying the
  present and historical extent of select mussel
  species, and conserving habitat sufficient to
  maintain self sustaining populations.
• Through targeted restoration of
  watersheds/streams that support mussel beds, and
  restoration of these beds using propagation and
  other techniques, we can have an expedited and
  larger reaching impact on all aquatic resources
  in that watershed and down stream.

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Ohio River Basin
NY
PA
The mainstem Ohio River is 981 miles long and the
Ohio River basin drains over 200,000 square
miles. The basin includes portions of 14 states
and straddles three USFWS regions.
OH
IN
IL
MD
WV
KY
VA
NC
TN
GA
AL
MS
Karl Musser Paradigm Systems GIS, Inc.
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Ohio River Basin Habitats
Ohio River Foundation

• Warm Water
• Cool Water
• Cold Water

Illinois Natural History Survery
Aquacare
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Ohio River Basin Fauna
Outdoor Alabama
Miles C. Barnhart

• Fish
• 300 species (14 federally listed)
• Mussels
• 130 species (38 federally listed)
• Reptiles and Amphibians
• Cheat Mountain Salamander
• Waterbirds

James Galletto
Marshall University
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Public Reliance on Ohio River Resources

• Recreation
• Ohio Sport Fishing is a billion dollar a year
  industry.
• Commerce
• Over 150,000 people with an annual payroll of
  6.5 billion work for businesses that are
  directly or indirectly dependent on the Ohio
  River.
• Drinking water
• More than 25 million people, almost 10 percent of
  the U.S. population, live in the Ohio River Basin
  and the main stem Ohio River is a source of
  drinking water for more than three million people

Louis J. Haskell
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Ecological Role of Mussels
Freshwater mussels help sustain recreational,
commercial and drinking water resources by
providing a wide array of aquatic organisms with
their most basic needs food, shelter and clean
water.
CTUIR Freshwater Mussel Project
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I. Food
Mussels provide nutrients and a hard surface for
algae growth, food for aquatic insects (Vaughn
and Hakencamp 2001) Research has shown that
aquatic insect densities are significantly higher
in areas where mussel beds occur. (Vaughn and
Spooner 2006) Aquatic insects are the primary
food source for a variety of fish species
(Cordes and Page 1980, Hubert and Rhodes 1988)

Craig Springer
Ken Dudzik
Y. Tsukii
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II. Shelter
By burrowing in the river bottom, mussels help to
stabilize sediments and provide shelter for
smaller animals during high flow
conditions. (Resh et al. 1988, Strayer
2004) Fish also use the shells of dead mussels
for depositing egg masses. The egg mass below
(possibly madtom or darter eggs) was found
carefully placed inside two gaped valves.

Dick Neves
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III. Clean Water
200,000 freshwater mussels filter 1 million
gallons of water per day.
No chemicals
Free of Charge!
No electricity
No scrubbers
No fancy filters
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III. Clean Water
An average metropolitan city along the Ohio River
spends close to 35,000 a day to treat 100
million gallons of water (13 million per year).
Imagine how much money local communities could
save in water treatment costs if native mussel
communities were restored?
waterencyclopedia.com
Jess Jones, USFWS.
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III. Clean Water
This experiment was set-up to demonstrate the
incredible filtering capacity of freshwater
mussels. Both tanks were filled with
sediment and food particles but only one tank was
filled with mussels. This photo was taken at
time zero.
Virginia Tech
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III. Clean Water
24 hours later the larger particles in the tank
with no mussels have clearly settled out but the
tank with 8 mussels is crystal clear.
Virginia Tech
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Water-related problems in the Ohio River Basin

• Effluent from municipal wastewater treatment
  plants
• Combined sewage and storm water overflows, urban
  storm water
• Acid mine drainage
• Agricultural and forest lands runoff
• Sedimentation
• Toxic pollutants
• Problems from oil and gas recovery brines
• Reservoir sedimentation
• Ground water pollution, and drinking water
  contamination
• emerging Pathogens
• Exotic aquatic species
• Acid precipitation and hazardous waste disposal
  sites.
• Fish Passage
• Nineteen locks and dams in the Ohio River for
  navigation (ORSANCO)

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Sedimentation
Sedimentation reduced abundances of fish that
require clean gravel for spawning. (Berkman and
Rabeni 1986)
Fish deformities, eroded fins, lesions, or
tumors also are positively related to increased
levels of turbidity and suspended solids.
(Schleiger 2000)
Southeastern Outdoors
Alaskaflyfishingonline.com
Jay Burkholder
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Sedimentation
In 6 miles of river, 5000 mussels filter 25
metric Tons (55,000 pounds) of silt per year
(Kreeger and Gatenby 2003)
Illinois Natural History Survey
Mussels filter sediments, package them, and
deposit them as feces
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Building from Existing Partnerships and
Establishing New Partners

• Ohio River Valley Ecosystem Team
• Ohio River Fish Management Team
• Ohio River Foundation
• States (In, IL, KY, PA, WV, VA)
• Federal Agencies (USFWS, NPS, USGS, USCOE)
• NGOs (Nature Conservancy, Western PA Conservancy,
  Greenbrier River Watershed Assoc. and others)
• Academia (Marshall University, Virginia Tech,
  West Virginia University)
• Tribes (Developing partnership with Seneca)

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Ohio River Basin
Marshall University NRCS The Nature
Conservancy Ohio Department of Natural
Resources Ohio Division of Wildlife Ohio River
Foundation ORSANCO The Ohio State
University Pennsylvania Fish and Boat
Commission Southeast Aquatic Research
Institute Tennessee Tech University Tennessee
Wildlife Resources Agency U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Louisville, Huntington, Nashville, and
Pittsburgh Districts U.S. Department of
Agriculture U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
(Regions 3, 4, and5)
American Rivers - The Ohio River American Zoo
and Aquarium Association Big Oaks Conservation
Society CINERGY Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Center
for Mollusk Conservation and Research Eastern
Kentucky University Ecological Specialists,
Inc. Enviroscience, Inc. Greenbrier River
Watershed Association USEPA (Region 3) Illinois
Natural History Survey Illinois Dept. of Natural
Resources Indiana Dept. of Natural
Resources Indiana University Indiana State
University Kentucky Dept. of FWR Kentucky
Waterways Alliance
U.S. Forest Service U.S. Geological Survey
Virginia Tech Virginia Department of Inland
Fisheries Western Pennsylvania Conservancy West
Virginia DNR West Virginia University
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Interim Governance
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Addressing FHP Overlap

• ORB focusing on mussels and lower elevation
  streams
• EBTJV focusing on high elevation headwater
  streams
• Coordinate with SARP to look for areas of mutual
  focus and identify where our focus may diverge

Overlap Map here
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Accomplishments to Date

• Core group has been developed
• Endorsement by ORVET
• Developed a fact sheet
• Submitted a multi-state grant to assist in
  partnership build up, developing baseline GIS
  layers and strategic planning
• Interim governance structure identified
• Coordination with the ORFMT (10/07)
• Coordination with WVDNR and Partners for Fish and
  Wildlife

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Current Efforts Underway
1) Reducing nutrient inputs  2) Restoring
riparian vegetation 3) Removing fish passage
barriers 4) Restoring mussel beds
Janet Clayton
Rachel Mair
John Schmidt
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Accomplishments planned for remainder of 2007

• Interim Committee members identified
• ( minimum of 10)
• Leads for work groups identified
• Date, host, and location for summer 08
  partnership kick-off meeting determined
• Identify and seek out funding sources to support
  the ground work necessary to guide strategic
  habitat conservation

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Thank You
HEALTHY MUSSELS HEALTHY RIVERS HEALTHY FISH
HEALTHY PEOPLE
Photo courtesy of the CTUIR