As one of the first ‘Candidate’ Partnerships under the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP), the Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership was invited to give a presentation to the NFHAP Board.  Tom Jones (Marshal University) and Rob Simmonds (Project Leader, Carterville NFWCO) gave the presentation but several other folks also collaborated to pull the presentation together and/or attended the meeting:  Rich Cogen (Ohio River Federation), Barb Douglas (USFWS), Maureen Gallagher (USFWS), Catherine Gatenby (USFWS), and Matt Patterson (USFWS).

This was a great opportunity to interact with and get feedback from the Board.  It was also a great opportunity to discuss the unique aspects of our partnership.  We intend to conserve and restore habitat through all the usual means (e.g., conservation agreements, restore riparian habitat, provide fish passage), but we plan to take it a step further by working in areas where we can also restore mussel populations to get the additional benefits that mussels provide:

• Substrate stabilization as well as habitat for insects and small fish
• Reduced sedimentation – in 6 miles of river, 5000 mussels filter 25 metric tons (55,000 pounds) of silt per year!
• Leading to cleaner drinking water, better habitat, and healthier fish.

Just 2 weeks later we had the opportunity to give a similar presentation to the Ohio River Fish Management Team which is a group comprised of the Fish Chiefs of the states along the mainstem Ohio River.  This group works comes together to share information and ideas that can help them collectively manage the fishery resources they share in the Ohio River.  They are also very important partners to the Ohio River Basin Habitat Partnership.  Maureen Gallagher and Rob Simmonds, with assistance from Barb Douglas, gave a well received presentation to the group.  Although some tough questions followed regarding the likelihood of the effort resulting in funding given past planning efforts in the basin that hadn’t come to fruition, all committed to at least some initial level of involvement as we move forward with some indicating strong interest.