The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service says it has worked out a deal that allows the Army Corps of Engineers to keep some of the recent rain water falling into Lake Lanier. The idea is that doing so will prompt two federally protected mussel species in Florida's Apalachicola River, to instinctively seek deeper water.
Sam Hamilton heads the regional Fish and Wildlife Service office. He says news reports which pit metro-Atlanta's water needs against Florida's shellfish, have missed what is really at issue in the so-called water wars.
Sam Hamilton heads the regional Fish and Wildlife Service office. He says news reports which pit metro-Atlanta's water needs against Florida's shellfish, have missed what is really at issue in the so-called water wars.
"Mussels didn't get us into this problem and mussels aren't going to get us out of this problem. But the competing needs downstream are serious and someone may have to choose between power generation, other people's drinking water downstream and the city of Atlanta."If winter rains don't fill the reservoirs, as experts predict, U-S Fish and Wildlife authorities will be forced to move the mussels from the Apalachicola River into federal shellfish farms. Already the agency has collected several hundred dead purple bank climber and fat three ridge mussels because of falling water levels.
Endangered Purple Bankclimber Mussel(Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service)
Endangered Fat Threeridge Mussel
(Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service)
(Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service)
More information at http://www.fws.gov/southeast/ACF-QAs-FWS-10-12-07.pdf
or http://www.fws.gov/southeast/october07/MusselQAs-ACFBasin.pdf
