Divers relocate mussels at the Green River Ferry
MAMMOTH CAVE, Ky.- The Green River Ferry and access road in Mammoth Cave is closed until Thursday this week to all car traffic to save many species of endangered mussels.
Divers are relocating the mussels over the next few days for the Green River Ferry improvement project. This includes extending the ramp, building a dam and resurfacing pavement, according to cave specialist Rick Toomey.
“We’re going to be lengthening the ramp so that we can run in lower water, but as part of that we need to dredge, and we need to put a dam in and both of those will impact the mussels,” said Toomey.
There are over 50 species of mussels in the park, with 10 of them on the federally endangered list. The park relocated over 2,500 mussels in May 2019, just prior to the construction work on the north Green River Ferry ramp. This time they estimate that they will recover about 1,000.
Diver Chad Lewis says mussels are an indicator of a healthy river habitat.
“In Mammoth Cave you know we’ve got over 30 species of mussels and literally thousands, probably hundreds of thousands in the park because this river is a healthy system,” said Lewis.
The specially trained dive team will collect the mussels and replant them in the river bed either above or below the Green River Ferry crossing.
“They look a lot like a rock on the river bottom. Just gotta sweep everything out of the way and dig and they’ll be buried underneath. Just gotta pick them out of the hundreds of rocks down there,” said Lewis.
