By Michael Doyle
The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to reconsider whether a freshwater mussel called the brook floater warrants Endangered Species Act protections.
In a court settlement with environmentalists and a law school clinic, the federal agency committed to a do-over of its 2019 determination that the brook floater did not qualify for listing as threatened or endangered. The settlement calls for completion of an updated status assessment by Aug. 30, 2029.
“The Endangered Species Act remains one of the most effective tools for preventing extinction of imperiled species, so it is encouraging to see the brook floater getting another look,” said Conor Dorn, a third-year student at the University of Chicago Law School, in a statement.
Dorn is a member of the school’s Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, which represented the Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit.
The Center and its allies first sought federal protection for the mussels in 2010. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the ESA listing petition. The Center for Biological Diversity and the law school clinic challenged the denial in the lawsuit filed last April in federal court in the District of Columbia.
“Brook floaters are one of hundreds of species facing extinction because of the ongoing destruction of environmental protections by Trump and his cronies,” said Tierra Curry, endangered species co-director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a policy of not commenting on litigation.
The brook floater is small, usually less than 3 inches in length, and as of 2019 the species was found in 14 states. The largest populations are in Maine and North Carolina but multiple threats have wiped out up to 60 percent of the species’ populations, according to CBD. The environmental organization also reports that half of the mussel’s roughly 200 surviving populations are in poor condition.
Hurricane Helene in 2024 destroyed some of the mussel’s best habitat, according to the lawsuit, which also cited the threats from contaminants, loss of riparian forests and rising stream temperatures.
The lawsuit’s core argument focused on the claim that the Fish and Wildlife Service had applied an “unlawfully stringent” standard in assessing whether the brook floater was threatened or endangered.