Efforts to protect grotto sculpin continue

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Nearly a year after the grotto sculpin was placed on the endangered species list, local officials say efforts to keep the fish safe are right on track.

For more than a year, a team of stakeholders -- including state, federal and local officials, landowners and conservation experts -- has been working to create and implement a plan to protect the 2 1/2-inch-long fish, which is believed to be found exclusively in the caves below Perry County, Missouri.

Perry County is situated on a karst system, meaning the ground is porous -- peppered with natural sinkholes that funnel water into the caves below.

Because the water runs directly into the caves, it has little chance to be cleansed of contaminants before going into the groundwater that serves as a habitat for the grotto sculpin.

The Perry County Community Conservation Plan is designed to protect the fish by improving groundwater quality.

Frank Wideman, natural resource engineer for the University of Missouri Extension Center in Perry County, said the plan remains a work in progress, but portions of it already have been implemented.

"The plan still says 'draft,' but it's pretty much where we want to be," he said.

Sinkholes

A key component of the plan involves improving sinkholes to reduce the debris and contaminants that wash into them.

Jason Crites, fisheries management biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, estimates there are "several thousand" sinkholes across the region.

Crites said since June 2013, fisheries staff have used about $18,000 in federal cost-share grant money to help farmers improve sinkholes and adopt best management practices to keep contaminants out.

"Since June 2013, five sinkholes have been cleaned out, removing about 140 tons of household trash, metals, tires and other refuse," he said in an email to the Southeast Missourian last week.

Five acres of sinkholes also were fenced to keep livestock out of them, and a Bridgestone Tire program helped remove 1,281 tires from another sinkhole area, Crites said.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Crites said the sinkholes vary in size and depth, with some up to 50 feet deep and large enough to swallow livestock.

"You've got some you can step over and look down -- just a hole in the ground -- and you've got some others that are pretty substantial," he said. "... Each one's a little different."

In many cases, debris ends up in the holes for safety reasons: Landowners, worried people or animals will fall into a sinkhole, fill it with whatever they have handy -- trash, old tires, wood or other materials, Crites said.

Perryville city administrator Brent Buerck said the city maintains sinkholes through methods similar to those used by rural farmers. Crews dig down to bedrock around the hole; clean it out; insert a concrete pipe with a coarse filter on top to catch debris; and plant vegetation around the hole to act as a natural filter for the water before it runs in.

"At the end of the day, the water will go where it's always gone, but we're just going to have some mechanisms in place to ensure it's properly cleaned before it goes in," he said.

Benefits

Perryville maintains more than 300 sinkholes in exchange for easements around them, Buerck said.

"It's vital to the safety and welfare of our citizens, but it's also a vital part of the city's stormwater system," he said. "... In the past when those have clogged up, that's when it's backed up into other people's yards."

In rural areas, officials are taking an inventory of cropping systems -- the conservation practices farmers use in planting and managing crops, Wideman said.

"We're hopeful that we get more and more converts over to a higher level of conservation," he said.

Specifically, Wideman said the area needs more no-till farming and more cover crops to help reduce soil erosion, which is bad for both the grotto sculpin and farmers' bottom lines.

Most of the nutrients in the soil are in the top layer, as are any amendments farmers have added to the soil, such as fertilizer or pesticides, he said.

"Keeping that there is a good thing for everyone concerned," Wideman said. "If you're wanting to have long-term production on the land, you're probably doing a lot of this stuff anyway."

The cost-share grants also help landowners turn sinkhole buffer zones into habitat for wildlife such as rabbits, quail or other small game, enhancing hunting opportunities, Crites said.

Jump start

While the plan is a work in progress, the community hasn't waited to implement it, Wideman said.

"We're working the plan as we're developing it," he said. "... We needed to be going ahead and adopting the best management practices that we could right off the bat."

The better the plan works, the lower the likelihood of outside entities stepping in and imposing strict regulations in Perry County, Wideman said.

The region has had input from experts, but Wideman and Buerck said many people already knew what practices they needed to implement.

"The folks here in the community already had a pretty good idea," Wideman said. "We were able to come up with a pretty good list on our own."

Buerck said Perry County communities have had years to figure out how to manage sinkholes.

"A lot of this has kind of been trial and error over the years. Just because of the karst topography, we've gotten pretty good at effectively maintaining them," he said.

Measuring success

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is monitoring implementation of the plan and will review its data after five years to determine how well it is working and whether the grotto sculpin should remain on the endangered species list.

Because the grotto sculpin is small and lives in dark, underground spaces that are difficult to reach, its protectors are relying on water quality rather than trying to count individual fish to determine the species' relative safety.

"We're going to base recovery on water-quality parameters. ... Counting fish can be tricky," Shauna Marquardt, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, said at a public meeting last fall in Perryville.

At the moment, however, details are murky, as little water testing has been done in the area over the years, Wideman said.

"This is one area of the state that has not had much water quality testing done in the community," he said.

The last round of water testing was done in the mid to late 1990s, Wideman said.

"We haven't garnered the funds yet to do any additional testing," he said.

If the plan works, the improvements should have a cumulative effect, improving the grotto sculpin's habitat gradually, over a period of several years, Buerck said.

"I don't know that it was ever going to be like a light switch," he said.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Perry County, MO