The PA Association of Environmental Professionals and DEP will host a Freshwater Mussels In The Ohio and Allegheny River Watersheds Workshop on July 26 at the DEP Regional Office, 400 Waterfront Drive in Pittsburgh from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.

The public in general and even many in the environmental consulting profession know little about the life history and current status of freshwater mussels.

Perhaps all of us have walked by these inconspicuous inhabitants of the Ohio and Allegheny River watersheds, thinking that what we are seeing in rivers and large streams are merely rocks and cobbles emerging from bottom substrates.

Mussel species are diverse and their appearance when out of their native bottom habitat is quite colorful with many shapes and sizes. They have a very unique reproductive strategy.

Some may believe freshwater mussels are related to marine and estuarine bivalve counterparts, but their life history and longevity are different.

Joseph Snavely is a Principal Scientist with Normandeau Associates, Inc., based in Central, Franklin County. He is an expert aquatic ecologist and a US Fish and Wildlife Service qualified freshwater malacologist.

Snavely is approved to survey threatened and endangered mussels in the Atlantic Slope and the Interior Basin, encompassing seventeen states.

He will present to the group the general life history, diversity, and population range of mussels in our region, including the ecological function they fill, the regulations that govern them, an overview of an approved mussel survey plan and implications to various water users regarding their population numbers and other dynamics

Click Here to download a flyer on the event.  This event is limited to 50 people.

To register for this free event from PAEP or for more information, visit the Workshop webpage.

For more information on programs, initiatives, workshops and other special events, visit the PA Association of Environmental Professionals website.  Click Here to sign up for regular updates on PAEP activities or Like them on Facebook.  Click Here to become a member.

(Photo: Freshwater clamshell mussel, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.)

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[Posted: July 5, 2018]

7/9/2018