Capital Press: Environmental group sues to protect native Western ridged mussel
The Center for Biological Diversity on June 9 sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to decide whether native Western ridged mussels should be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The mussels “are sliding toward extinction and it’s clear they won’t get any help from the Trump administration without this lawsuit,” Meg Townsend, freshwater attorney for the center, said in a news release. “We won’t let these little yet important mussels become its latest victim. Every year that endangered species protections are delayed puts more populations at risk and makes recovery harder.”
Western ridged mussels are native to rivers and streams throughout the West, including the Columbia and Snake river basins.
The mussels — which filter algae, bacteria and pollutants — are disappearing from rivers across Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Nevada, according to the release. Many historically important sites for the mussels no longer support them, and many local populations no longer reproduce successfully.
FWS missed a deadline to determine whether safeguards are warranted for the mussels, according to the center.
The Endangered Species Act requires FWS to publish a finding within a year of receiving a petition to list a species when the agency has made a 90-day finding that listing may be warranted, according to the complaint. FWS on Aug. 20, 2021, received a petition to list the Western ridged mussel and subsequently published a positive 90-day finding, but did not issue a 12-month finding by the Aug. 20, 2021, deadline.
“Defendants have not made the statutorily required 12-month finding for the western ridged mussel” and “failed to perform their non-discretionary duty to timely issue the listing decision in violation of the ESA,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring FWS to issue the finding.
Native fish tie
Western ridged mussel adults spend most of their lives partially buried in river sediments and move only short distances. Larvae temporarily attach to the gills or fins of native fish to develop before dropping to the riverbed and growing into adults.
Dependence on host fish makes these mussels especially vulnerable to dams, habitat fragmentation and declining water quality, according to the release. Dams that block fish migration, and other disruptions to river ecosystems, can threaten the mussel’s survival.
Western ridged mussels have declined across much of their historic range because of river damming, degraded water quality, drought, and invasive species such as quagga and zebra mussels, according to the center. Losing Western ridged mussels and their filtration and nutrient cycling functions can have cascading impacts throughout entire river ecosystems
“When mussels disappear, it’s often a warning sign that entire aquatic ecosystems are unraveling,” Townsend said in the release. Protecting the Western ridged mussel “would help safeguard rivers that also support salmon, wildlife and communities throughout the West.”
