The following is an article which ran in the Charlotte Observer recently:

Tiny mussel flexes influence over creek projects
By BRUCE HENDERSON
MINT HILL -- From the bottom of a Union County creek, North Carolina's most
endangered animal is making its presence felt.
The Carolina heelsplitter is a freshwater mussel, the most imperiled group
of species in North America. Once common in Charlotte, heelsplitters now
dodge extinction in only six Carolinas streams, including Goose Creek in
Mecklenburg and Union counties.
But its scarcity gives this 3-inch bivalve clout.
State agencies have invested at least $2.5 million since 1997 to protect
the heelsplitter and the Goose Creek watershed, where the mussel's known
numbers are fewer than 100.
The mussel threatens to stop Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities from extending
water lines to suburban Mint Hill. It also could stand in the way of a
regional sewage-treatment plant planned by Mecklenburg, Union and Cabarrus
counties.
In theory - if most unlikely in practice - the mussel also could stall
construction of Charlotte's outerbelt. Federal wildlife officials say the
freeway, which crosses upper Goose Creek, has caused more damage than
expected to the little tribe.
Biologists say the species, which is millions of years old, will survive in
Goose only if the region's growth machine strikes a balance with the most
obscure creature in its path. Mud from earth graders, runoff from streets
and chlorine in sewage discharges kill mussels.
Goose Creek is choked with silt as it winds through farmland that is giving
way to subdivisions and golf courses. It's already on the state's list of
fouled waterways.
Mussels serve as 911 calls for streams and rivers. If they're not healthy,
neither is the water or the other creatures that live in and around it.
By that measure, North Carolina's inland waters are in trouble. Half the
state's 60 mussel species and a quarter of its 200 freshwater fish species
face possible extinction.
Save the heelsplitter, its government defenders say, and save Goose Creek.
"If we can't conserve the most critically endangered species in North
Carolina," said John Alderman, a veteran state biologist, "how are you
going to save the rest of the endangered species here?"
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species
Act, rarely pulls the plug on dwindling species.
"We don't make a judgment call that a species is too far gone," said
spokesman Hugh Vickery. "As long as the species is there, we'll do what we
can to help it."
Since 1973, only 11 plants and animals have recovered enough to get off
lists of endangered or threatened species. Seven others went extinct. Among
the 61 N.C. plants and animals still listed is the Eastern puma, or cougar,
which hasn't been confirmed to live in the N.C. wilds for decades.
The law prohibits federal agencies - or their money - from jeopardizing
endangered species. A tiny, endangered fish called the snail darter nearly
 stopped construction of a $136 million Tennessee Valley Authority dam in
the 1970s. Over the past decade, efforts to save the habitat of the spotted
owl in the Pacific Northwest have helped cut timber production by 75
percent on federal lands.
Federal road-building money prompted scrutiny of the Charlotte outerbelt in
the mid-1990s. The Fish and Wildlife Service said development expected to
spring up in the freeway's path would threaten the heelsplitter, but it
accepted state steps intended to deflect the danger.
Among the steps: a $150,000 grant from the N.C. Department of
Transportation to the state Wildlife Resources Commission, which would hire
a commission biologist as the mussel's protector for three years.
The N.C. DOT has since renewed that grant and committed an additional
$350,000 for stream restoration and monitoring in the Goose Creek
watershed. The state Clean Water Management Trust Fund paid $1.8 million to
buy protective easements.
"The money we spend on the mussel and the effort we put toward the mussel
addresses so many other things," said Kate Pipkin, the conservation
biologist assigned to the heelsplitter since 1997. "Open space, stormwater
runoff, farming rights - all that comes into play."
Much of the state's goal is to make friends for the heelsplitter, to
convince watershed residents of the mussel's ecological worth.
The mussel, however, has the cuddly quotient of a lump of coal. It has not
been an easy sale.
No landowners have agreed to sell protective easements along the creek, a
key component of protecting the mussels, although several have expressed
interest. N.C. DOT turned down one landowner who offered to sell a
floodplain for $45,000 an acre.
"We just can't compete" with rising development values, said Michael Wood,
an N.C. DOT environmental specialist. "I understand that people are leery,
but it gets frustrating for us. You spend a lot of time getting maps
together just for somebody to tell you they're not interested."
For the year that education specialist Tonya Moore has been on the job,
only about one school or homeowner group a month has agreed to hear
presentations on the heelsplitter. Interest has inexplicably picked up in
recent weeks.
Scott Hill, who's been interested in nature since college, asked Moore to
come talk about the heelsplitter last summer. He and his children still
enjoy hunting crawdads in the Goose Creek tributary in their Union County
subdivision.
Silt and algae have increased in Hill's backyard creek during the past
decade. But even he wavers on how far protection for the mussel should
extend.
"I'm on the fence on that issue," he said. "I'm for protection,
particularly for a species that is easily harmed. But on the other hand, if
mussels are in there, how bad can the water be?"
As public appeals continue, conflict is brewing between the heelsplitter
and development.
Fish and Wildlife says Interstate 485 is causing more direct damage to
Goose Creek than expected. Stormwater runoff, which sweeps pollutants into
the creek, is 6 percent higher after heavy storms than before. Stream banks
are eroding.
The federal agency and state transportation officials are beginning talks
on how to ease the impact. There is no easy solution, said a Fish and
Wildlife official.
"Of the hundreds of consultations I've been involved in, this is one of the
most challenging situations and carries with it some of the most importance
for a species," said Mark Cantrell, who is based in Asheville. "It's not
going to be easy."
The heelsplitter is also at the center of state objections to a plan by
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities to extend water lines into the Rocky River
watershed, including Goose Creek. Development spurred by the lines would
harm the mussel, wildlife officials say.
"I think somebody's over-reaching," said Rep. Jim Gulley, R-Mecklenburg,
who chairs the N.C. House's Wildlife Resources Committee. "I don't know how
they know this is the only spot the mussel lives in, or that more
development is going to ruin that."
Unable to reach a compromise, the town and state regulators will go into
mediation this month. Utilities says it will omit Goose Creek from its
water-line extensions until an agreement is reached.
Without county service, Mint Hill Town Manager Todd Lamb predicts,
developers will install privately owned sewage treatment plants - the kind
already suspected of polluting Goose Creek.
State officials say the mussel will also figure in plans for a regional
sewage treatment plant scheduled to open on the Rocky River, just
downstream of Goose Creek, in 2005. An environmental impact statement is
under way.
Opponents of the plant found an ally in the heelsplitter.
"Can't hurt," said Wayne Huneycutt, who lives in northern Union County.
Huneycutt and some of his neighbors predict fast-growing suburbs, boosted
by sewage lines, will overwhelm farmland, and plant discharges will kill
the Rocky River.
Huneycutt recalls how the state took extra precautions, on account of the
mussel, when it built a new bridge over Goose Creek.
"I remember reading about that and thinking it was silly," he said. "I
didn't know that it would become something I would be in favor of later. It
changes your opinion when it's in your back yard."