How many mussels relocated in Kankakee River?

KANKAKEE – So how many Kankakee River mussels were found and relocated to an alternative section of the river?

Well, two Kankakeeans were ever-so-close with their contest submission at the Kankakee Farmers’ Market on Saturday.

There were 346 mussels captured and relocated by the crew from GZA GeoEnvironmental, of Norwood, Massachusetts, which has an office in Chicago.

Kankakee Mayor Chris Curtis said at Monday’s Kankakee City Council meeting that of the 346 total, 27 were identified as being on the state’s endangered species list.

And the two winning guesses were each off by a single mussel.

Walter Sanford and Cindi Hannay submitted the winning guesses. Hannay selected 345 and Sanford chose 347.

The contest, the brainchild of Bill Yohnka, who has led the private portion of the fundraising effort, resulted in the two winners each receiving a farmers’ market tote bag and Currents of Kankakee T-shirt.

Yohnka set the low- and high-water mark for the mussels guesses from five to 500.

He said about 100 guesses were submitted. He said the lowest guess was five and the highest was 500.

There were at least two varieties of endangered mussels in this area of the Kankakee River, the spike and the monkeyface mussels.

For the preservation of the mussels, the city did not state where they were relocated.

The Currents of Kankakee is the name for what will eventually be the 4-mile stretch of the Kankakee River from the Frank Lloyd Wright property at South Harrison Avenue and northwest to the Riverside Medical Center campus.

The East Riverwalk is the first major component of the riverwalk.

The endangered mussels were removed and relocated, as determined by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The GZA crew was on site in a 350-or-so-foot stretch of the Kankakee River starting at the South Schuyler Avenue bridge and stretching to just beyond the area of South Indiana Avenue.

The city is hoping construction can begin in early August on the riverwalk. In addition to having to find and relocate endangered species of mussels, the project is also being delayed due to the spawning season of the Red River Horsefish.