Minimizing Impacts to Endangered Mussels from a Habitat Improvement Project on the Upper Mississippi River

The presence of Federally endangered species at a proposed project site can cause even an environmentally beneficial project to stall or fail.  The occurrence of Federally endangered freshwater mussel species has impacted several Habitat Rehabilitation and Enhancement Projects (HREPs) on the Upper Mississippi River (UMR).  For the Capoli Slough HREP in UMR Pool 9, the St. Paul District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used a variety of avoidance and mitigation strategies to minimize the impacts to the endangered Higgins eye pearlymussel.  Mussel surveys, coordination, mitigation, and monitoring strategies were developed over the course of project planning to minimize impacts to Higgins eye and other native mussels while maintaining cost-effective ecosystem benefits of the project.  Similar strategies could be utilized in planning future HREPs to develop projects that improve the overall habitat value of a location while avoiding impacts to species protected by the Endangered Species Act.