Danielle Kreeger: What we're doing today we have baby mussels that we reared in a hatchery. We have them in these baskets that we float in ponds, and ponds are really good nurseries for the baby mussels because there's a lot of productivity, a lot of food for them to eat and they don't get preyed upon. In streams and rivers, any flood you have from any summer thunderstorm could wash them downstream and kill them.
So we're screening ponds, old quarries, anything that meets our criteria for being reasonably protected and having good growing conditions, lots of production. To see which we will then later be able to use the best results in our rearing programs in the years to come.
Tom Hubbard: If we can bring those populations back and they could naturally filter the water, what a great thing for the planet and for the water that we put out as drinking water. And this notion of using these amazing creatures that can filter 20 gallons of water a day naturally, if we can restore their populations upstream from our water treatment plant, the water's gonna be so much cleaner by the time it gets to our treatment plant that potentially we could reduce the amount of treatment we have to do. It will reduce our carbon footprint because we wouldn't have to use as much electricity to treat the water, and it possibly could cut costs and help customers in that way.
It's Mother Nature doing her thing. We have natural ecosystems services taking care of an issue that they used to take care of before mankind destroyed their population. So now, if we can rebuild it, everybody wins.
