Protecting Allegheny mussels creates stew
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A Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission proposal to list five Allegheny River mussel species as endangered or threatened has drawn fire from the commercial sand and gravel industry and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
State Sen. Don White, R-Indiana, who counts the aggregates companies among his constituents, has reacted by introducing legislation that would stop the commission from listing any threatened or endangered species and subject all new commission regulations to legislative review.
The commission has proposed listing snuffbox, rabbitsfoot and salamander mussels as endangered and the sheepnose and rayed bean mussels as threatened and expects to take action on the proposal at its quarterly meeting in April. A public hearing on the listings is scheduled for this evening in Kittanning, Armstrong County.
More than 50 mussel species once inhabited the Allegheny River, one of the most ecologically diverse watersheds in the nation. But that number has dwindled to little more than a dozen due to the damming and pooling of the river for navigation, pollution and 100 years of commercial dredging.
Dan Giovannitti, a spokesman for the river aggregates industry, said the proposed listings aren't warranted based on the biological data and would impose additional, unnecessary restrictions on commercial sand and gravel dredging in the river, which could lead to increased materials costs for PennDOT.
PennDOT likes to use the glacial river rock because of its skid-resistant properties and buys about 2.1 million tons of the approximately 4 million tons of aggregate scraped from the bottom of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers annually.
In a Jan. 19 letter to the commission, Brian Thompson, PennDOT bureau of design director, said the availability of river aggregates would be impacted by the listings and state road and bridge building costs could increase by $6 million or more.
While the proposed mussel listings could restrict dredging to preserve their underwater habitats in some areas of the Allegheny River, said Doug Austen, commission executive director, much of their habitat overlaps with areas already off-limits to dredging because of the northern riffleshell and clubshell, two federally endangered mussel species.
"The industry is portraying this as somehow shutting down dredging on the river but that's a radical interpretation," Mr. Austen said. "The truth is we don't know exactly what the effect will be on the industry because the companies won't tell us where they want to dredge, claiming it's proprietary."
The riverbeds are publicly owned and the three companies that dredge the rivers -- Hanson Aggregates PMA Inc., Glacial Sand & Gravel Co. and Tri-State River Products Inc. -- can do so only after obtaining permits from the state and federal governments.
Under their permits they are allowed to dig on almost 100 miles of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, including pools 4, 5, 7 and 8 on the Allegheny, which stretch from Harrison in Allegheny County to Washington Township in Armstrong County. In the Ohio River dredging is permitted in the Montgomery and Cumberland pools, a reach of river that runs between Baden and Midland in Beaver County.
Joe Pittman, a spokesman for Mr. White, said the senator introduced his two bills because the proposed bivalve listings could harm the aggregate industry, a major employer in his district. He said making the Fish and Boat Commission actions subject to review by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and standing legislative committees will slow down the process and provide an opportunity for public input.
Mr. Austen said the commission's rulemaking process already has ample provisions for public input, including publishing proposed rules in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, and public meetings like the one in Kittanning this evening. Making the commission's rules and regulations go through legislative and IRRC reviews will add up to two years to the time it takes to make changes in everything from creel limits to fishing seasons.
"We were recently able to move on changes to the striped bass season on the Delaware River in three months, but if we had to go through an IRRC review it would have taken 20 months," Mr. Austen said. "I think any sportsman would find that a horrible outcome."
And relying only on federal listings to preserve biological diversity would be a mistake too, he said.
"Our hope is that protecting the species at the state level will prevent a federal listing, which would be much more prohibitive," Mr. Austen said.
At its Jan. 31 quarterly meeting the commission postponed action on the listing proposal until its meeting April 20-21, and extended the public comment period through March 15.
The hearing on the proposed listings is scheduled for 6:30 tonight at the Kittanning Township Fire Department, 13126 Route 422 in Kittanning. Written comments can be mailed to Executive Director, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, P.O. Box 67000, Harrisburg, PA 17106-7000.
Comments may be submitted electronically by completing the form at www.fishandboat.com/regcomments.
First Published March 2, 2009 12:00 am
