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Marian Havlik (BLF'76) Works to Save Fat Pocketbooks

January 19, 2008—

The fat pocketbook was first identified at Saint Anthony Falls in 1832, but none have been seen alive in the Mississippi in the last 40 to 50 years. That didn’t faze Havlik, who said, “I’m of the opinion that they aren’t seen because no one looks for them.” Havlik conferred with her crew of divers, one of whom has worked with her for more than 20 years, about their willingness to dive the murky and potentially dangerous bridge site. All were eager. If they found fat pocketbooks, they would relocate them to a muddy, calm area nearby so that construction could continue without harming the endangered mussels.

So Havlik set about doing the paperwork. She talked to both the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and she filed a request for her company to conduct a survey with all the contractors bidding on the job. In the end, the construction start date of October 15 meant there was almost no time for her crew to do the work.

Even so, it’s possible that any fat pocketbooks in the area may have fared well anyway. There were no piers in the old 35W bridge and aren’t any in the new design as well.

Piers can be a big problem for mussels, not only because they disturb the riverbed but because builders also construct a coffer dam to surround the pier. When piers are part of a bridge project, Havlik’s team surveys the proposed footprint of the pier and the coffer dam, as well as a 20-foot buffer zone around that footprint. She’s had to become an expert at reading bridge plans and topographical maps. “You’d be amazed by how many things I’ve learned about engineering and construction, besides knowing things about mussels.”

Although it didn’t work out for a survey of the fat pocketbook, Havlik’s team is busy doing surveys and relocations across the Midwest, and even at other spots on the Mississippi. “We have found that the Mississippi isn’t as dead as we thought it was. It’s recovered in the last 20, 25 years.” Havlik got interested in mussels because of her daughter’s science fair project. Like most moms in that late-1960s era, Havlik got ‘elected to help her.’ Later, she was irritated that no one was listening to commercial clam buyers who were lobbying the DNR to put harvesting size limits on mussels. She took up their cause and hasn’t stopped advocating since. Her 1976 Bush fellowship paid for training at Ohio State University under Dr. David Stansbery, a mollusk expert and taxonomist.

Since then, federal and state agencies have spent millions of dollars on mussel research because of her advocacy. In the beginning, “the biologists, who were mostly men, gave me a very hard time.” But after she gave a few papers and published, the professionals warmed. Now, she said, “I go to public hearings, and I never have to say a word.”

From the January 2008 issue of Giving Strength.