Here you see the black sandshells wired to the computer.

The monitoring system being used at the St Cloud waterworks.

Mild-mannered freshwater mussels or clams as most people refer to them, when seen in a river, are not thought of as very heroic.  However, for a second year freshwater mussels produced by Genoa National Fish Hatchery are being tested as means to protect countless citizens against potentially harmful chemicals or environmental factors that might enter water treatment plants in Minnesota that rely on surface water sources. Due to their relative immobility in aquatic systems, and their need to filter large volumes of water, and possibly pollutants in the quest for food, mussels make ideal organisms to test river water quality.  In 2007, a bio-monitoring system using freshwater mussels was installed at the Minneapolis Waterworks to monitor raw water by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  These mussels were supplied Mississippi River water from the Waterworks treatment plant influent while being connected to sensors that would send a signal to a computer.  If the mussels show coordinated shell closure activity, it is an indication of poor water quality.  Waterworks’ personnel would then receive an alarm and further test the safety of the water.  This year Genoa NFH shipped 144 black sandshell mussels to St. Cloud, MN where they were used to start up two additional bio-monitoring sites, one located at the St. Cloud Waterworks and the second at the Excel energy plant in Sherburne County, MN.  Genoa NFH is one of a very few select mussel culture facilities that can supply mussels greater than two inches in size to be used in monitoring systems such as these. With the addition of these two new monitoring sites, the EPA is testing the mussels’ abilities monitor water quality in over 60 miles of the Upper Mississippi River.  So I ask, rocks with guts or superheroes in training?  You decide.