You may not know it, but the Ohio River and its tributaries have naturally occurring clean-up crews. Enter the world of the mighty river mussel.
“They’re called ecosystem engineers, like beavers are ecosystem engineers, in the sense that they provide a valuable service of filtering the water,” said Thomas More University Professor of Biology and Director of the University’s Biology Field Station Chris Lorentz. “So they’ll filter the water. That includes contaminants in the water but also nutrients, sediments, things like that.”
Mussels are one of the forms of affected wildlife identified in the recently-published environmental assessment supplement from The Brent Spence Corridor project, which was released in January. Federal law requires any large-scale infrastructure project funded with federal money to undergo an assessment to see how the construction will affect the environment, and this year’s supplement–although officially not a new study–updated the original study to account for things that have changed since 2012.
In truth, the bridge project has already reduced its expected footprint from its original 2012 plans. Most notably, the number of impacted residential properties was reduced from 40 to just four. The City of Covington also successfully lobbied for additional stormwater overflow mitigation measures for the Peaselburg neighborhood, which the project agreed to, among other measures.
But that doesn’t mean the local environment will be left untouched. Several mussel populations, for instance, will need to be moved to make room for the construction.
It’s a trade-off, Lorentz said, as some of the mussels will inevitably die in the move, but the project will provide the resources necessary to conduct more surveys of the river, which will in the long-term provide more insight into the ecosystem. Survey data for the Ohio River, where the field station is located, is slim compared to other rivers of comparable size.
“I do believe that the benefits will certainly outweigh those impacts in terms of having the resources to survey,” Lorentz said.
There are dozens of mussel species in the Ohio River, both native and invasive, and Lorentz said that the Licking and Green Rivers have ideal ecosystems for mussel relocation. In addition to filtering pollutants out of the water, the mussels also create habitats for other species and serve as aquatic fodder.
The environmental supplement also identified four species of bats that would likely be affected by the construction. The project plans on donating to the Imperiled Bat Conservation Fund of Kentucky to offset this, although documentation from the project does not state how much it will give.
Germane to the discussion of the mussels is the broader issue of water quality.
For one thing, the Ohio River and many of its NKY tributaries are already categorized by the EPA as impaired. A waterway has to meet four criteria in order to be considered of good quality: It must be able to support aquatic life, it must be a source of safe drinking water, it must be safe for people to use recreationally (i.e. boating, fishing and swimming) and the fish in it must be safe to eat. If it fails at even one of these criteria, it’s categorized as impaired.
Locally, the key issue with moving water bodies in the stability of creek banks, which can collapse with increased water load, releasing sediment containing pollutants, such as fecal borne bacteria like e. coli, into the creeks and streams. The increase in hard, paved surfaces may have the effect of exasperating this problem.
“They generate a lot of runoff, and it would really benefit our community if that was managed,” said Banklick Watershed Council Watershed Coordinator Nicole Clements.
The Banklick Creek Watershed is one of the major watersheds in the region, and runs through parts of Boone and Kenton Counties.
Clements wrote a letter on behalf of the council to the Brent Spence Bridge Project during the public comment period earlier this year. The letter commends the project for the work its already done to reduce its environmental footprint, but it also outlines the council’s concerns, namely that the combined sewer systems in and around the watershed flow directly into the creeks. Increased run-off, Clements argues, could contribute to land slippage as well as infrastructure damage and habitat degradation. She asked the project and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to “improve the existing and future stormwater management in this area to protect against further erosion, by designing to SD1’s standards for stream channel protection.”
“Kentucky and Ohio follow federal regulations and national standards regarding transportation-related water impacts and associated permitting requirements. Each state also adheres to state-specific standards that provide guidance based on species and environmental factors within a specific region,” the cabinet said in an email to LINK nky. “The Transportation Cabinet will coordinate with Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky (SD1) when detailed design starts this summer leading up to the start of construction.”
SD1 confirmed this.
“SD1, KYTC and the City of Covington have been collaborating to maximize the opportunity the Brent Spence Bridge project provides to improve stormwater management and reduce combined system overflows,” said SD1 Director of Enterprise Communications Chris Cole in an email to LINK nky.
Furthermore, Clements sent an email to LINK nky on Friday, saying that she was planning on meeting with engineers consulting with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to discuss the council’s concerns further in the coming weeks.
Finally, there are concerns about how the construction itself, which inevitably entails noise, fuel burning and the release of particulate materials into the air, will affect people’s health.
“We look at asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, attention deficit disorder, dementia, all of these things related to environmental pollutants,” said Nolan Nicaise. “These are things that really affect people’s lives, really degrade their quality of life.”
Nicaise has a background in environmental science and currently works advising municipalities on zoning policy. Nicaise is among the project’s more vocal critics, and when LINK nky interviewed him about the bridge last year, he explicitly came out in opposition to the project.
Nicaise points to the effect that the construction could have on communities with lower socioeconomic status, many of which are clustered around the bridge.
Moreover, Nicaise said, even when the project is done, the bridge will likely increase car traffic. Combined with the continued economic development in the region, this could amplify what he views as an over-dependence on cars.
Such a scenario, Nicaise said, is “troubling from a resiliency standpoint; it’s troubling from a national security standpoint. So I just think it’s the wrong way to go and really isn’t our future. And then when we look at the actual health impacts of those cars, we see that it’s costing us a lot of money for health care.”
According to the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, or OKI, Council of Governments’ traffic predictions for the bridge project, “overall daily vehicle traffic will increase to 217,400 and 228,300 by 2040 and 2050, respectively,” from the roughly 155,000 daily vehicles that currently travel over the bridge.
Construction is expected to begin in early 2025 and will last through 2029.
You can read the full environmental supplement and related documents at the links below: