County forest preserve officials plan to release 9,000 mussels into the DuPage River in the hopes of bolstering the existing population and keeping the waterway clean. DuPage County Forest Preserve District officials are scheduled to release the mussels into the river's West Branch between May and mid-October at 11 locations along 13 miles of the river between Naperville and Warrenville.
Jessi DiMartini, the forest preserve district's aquatic research center coordinator, says the first batch was to be released last weekend but rainfall made conditions unfavorable.
DiMartini says mussels can live to be over a century old and help the life of a river by filtering out such things as bacteria and algae. The West Branch used to house 15 species of freshwater mussels but is now down to nine.
