With the environmental assessment for the Hunter Station Bridge replacement now available, the Tionesta project is getting closer to being underway.

The assessment encompasses riffleshell and clubshell mussels among other environmental factors.

“It’s likely the world’s largest population of reproducing riffleshell and clubshell mussels,” said Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Environmental Specialist Autumn Kelley. “They’re federally endangered. It shows we have a healthy ecosystem and good water quality.”

In September 2014, a group of both species of mussels were moved into a new home in Conewango Creek.

The largest of that initial effort moved 8,000 mussels from West Hickory.

Now, roughly 56,000 mussels will be finding new homes around Pennsylvania, the Seneca Nation, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and Illinois.

“We need to move around 33,000 of the threatened and endangered mussels,” said Kelley. “We will also move the common mussels. There is estimated to be around 23,000.”

Kelley said that move should begin soon.

“They will begin being moved in a few weeks, once our mussel salvage plan is approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and PA Fish and Boat Commission,” Kelley said. “The effort is so large that it will take a few years to move them all. There are actually estimated to be twice as many mussels on site, but because of the efforts to recover them, we assume a 50 percent or more salvage/recovery rate.”

In addition to keeping the mussels safe from construction, “the goal of the endangered species act is recovery of the species,” Kelley said. “We’ve been working with the other states over the last seven years. Now they’re showing that they can survive, so…the goal (is) possibly-when this is all said and done-having the riffleshelled mussel removed from the endangered species act.”

The first year of bridge construction will be on land, so the mussels can continue to be moved through 2016 and possibly in 2017 as the Hunter Station Bridge will not be removed until mid-June that year.

The assessment also looks into a “handful of issues,” Kelley said, such as the historic value of the bridge, the river’s designation as wild and scenic, and its impact on socioeconomic resources.

The public and other agencies have until August 27 to submit written comments to PennDOT. Those can be sent to:

Ms. Autumn Kelley, District Environmental Manager, PennDOT Engineering District 1-0, 255 Elm Street, Oil City, PA 16301.

The assessment can be viewed at the Hunter’s Station Golf Club, Tionesta Visitor’s Center, PennDOT Engineering District 1-0 – Environmental Unit office, the Forest County Courthouse commissioner’s office or the Federal Highway Administration – PA Division office in Harrisburg.

Requests for a public hearing on the assessment must be made in writing by August 12 to William Petit, P.E., PennDOT District 1-0 District Executive at the same address as Kelley.

The Hunter Station Bridge in Forest County is a unique half-through metal truss bridge. Construction on the new bridge is slated to begin next year.