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 Winter
2001
Call
it the Mussel Shuffle. Dozens of celebrants — including
Spring and Phil Hayden of Carpentersville (left) —
rolled up their pants and waded into the old ditch to search
for, and rescue, mussels.
In
excavating the old, original channel, the district crew
found entire mussel beds still intact containing 1,200 to
1,500 specimens of 16 different species. In the ditch were
five species of the most common types of mussels, those
that can tolerate pollution and silt; only two of those
five species were found in the shell deposits in the excavated
bed of the original healthy stream. Ed and his colleagues
expect rare mussel species will recolonize the restored
stream.
  
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