The pier inspector ran her fingers along the pilings each month. Mussels colonized from the western end, one column at a time with the current. By the third survey the whole structure was encrusted. Then the ice scoured it clean — every piling stripped to bare wood in a single cold snap. When the thaw came, the mussels returned, but not from the west this time. The warm outflow from the power plant along the southern edge changed everything: the first new growth appeared along the bottom row, where the heated water kept the pilings above freezing. The rest was still bare. By summer, the whole pier was covered again.