More Rat Tales
Alma, Wis. — Author, storyteller and environmental educator Kenny Salwey plans to release his second book, Tales of a River Rat, in November. Salwey was a hunter, trapper and outdoor guide in the backwaters of the Mississippi before he decided to take his stories about the river to a wider audience. His first book, The Last River Rat (reviewed March-April 2002), was made into a BBC/Discovery Channel documentary film, Mississippi: Tales of the Last River Rat (reviewed Jan.-Feb. 2005).
Savanna, Ill. — Board members of the Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA) of Savanna are adding to the list of possible new uses for the former Savanna Army Depot, a closed arsenal upriver from Savanna.
The Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma has suggested a variety of projects that would bring jobs to the area, which is the LRA’s top priority. Among them are an international call center, a fuel-blending operation and a biodiesel plant, as well as the ethanol plant that was discussed last winter.
LRA members who visited Oklahoma this summer were impressed with what the Sac and Fox have accomplished in four communities there.
“They know how to make use of their sovereign role with the U.S. to find funds and benefit projects where their [tribal] members live, and benefit the communities, too,” said Dave Ylinen, executive director of the LRA.
Meanwhile, the Army transferred about 500 acres of land to the LRA this summer. Ylinen said he hopes for another 1,500 acres by next spring, even though it might take until 2014 to clean up of residues of mustard gas, TNT and other explosives on some sites.
“Getting title to the land is critical. It’s hard to go forward without it,” Ylinen said.
Transfers require approval by the LRA, the Army, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the governor of Illinois.
Iowa — If the Clinton Kiwanis Club gets its way, a new Sawmill Museum will draw visitors, entertain and educate children, and preserve the area’s rich lumber history. The club presented plans and won a resolution of support from the Clinton City Council in late July.
Meanwhile, the Jackson County Historical Society replaced the roof and restored electricity to the old Clinton Engines Factory in Maquoketa, taking the first steps to turn it into a museum. Clinton Engines, which once made small gasoline engines, was the 10th largest employer in Iowa for awhile. In LeClaire, Iowa, the Buffalo Bill Museum is working to raise $250,000 to put a roof over the Lone Star, the last wooden-hulled sternwheel towboat to work on the Upper Mississippi River. The old boat, built in 1869 and decommissioned in 1968, needs a shelter to protect it from damage by sunlight, rain, ice and snow. Link
Pepin, Wis. — For 25 years, the Harbor View Cafe has been known for its blackboard menus, for taking no reservations and no credit cards, and for long lines of people waiting for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. Devoted customers breathed a garlicky sigh of relief late this summer to hear that these traditions would continue. Carol and Paul Hinderlie and Tom Ahlstrom, who have owned and run the cafe for 25 years, sold it to Ruth Stoyke and Chuck Morrow, with help from long-time restaurant customers.
Minneapolis — A group called the Friends of the Mississippi Riverfront has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars to light up 12 of the arches of the Stone Arch Bridge, a pedestrian and bike bridge near downtown Minneapolis that spans the river just below St. Anthony Falls. The native granite and limestone bridge was built in 1883 by railroad magnate James J. Hill. The lights will go on sometime after Labor Day.
The remaining 11 arches will be lit next spring or when the group raises more money.
Minneapolis — The St. Paul District of the Army Corps of Engineers hopes to save $570,000 in annual labor costs by remodeling the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis, so that it can be operated by one person.
It has a smaller lock chamber with shorter tows and fewer double lockages than the locks downstream of the Twin Cities. To facilitate the change, the Corps cut vertical slots into the walls of the lock chamber and installed floating mooring bits that move up and down as water levels change, and allow boaters to tie up their own vessels.
If the new techniques pose no safety problems or increased lockage times during the 2005 shipping season, the Corps will initiate one-person operations at Lock and Dam 1 in 2006 and at Lower St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 2008.
Of the 195 locks and dams the Corps operates, 100 are operated by one person, including those in the Arkansas River, the Tennessee-Tombighee waterway and other rivers in the Lower Mississippi River basin.
St. Paul — St. Paul’s downtown post office is moving to the suburbs, freeing up 12 acres of prime riverfront property for redevelopment. The move will take several years.
City officials have big plans for the land when the dust settles from the demolition of the 17-story, 70-year-old building. They plan to redevelop riverfront real estate into housing and retail properties, expand the attached Union Depot building and convert it back to a transportation hub. City officials hope it will become a terminus for a high-speed rail line from Chicago and Milwaukee. This would draw the Amtrak depot back downtown, where it could offer light-rail transit connections to Minneapolis and its Hiawatha light-rail line.
The post office will move to a new bulk-mail distribution center on 92 acres in nearby Eagan, Minn., a St. Paul suburb south of the river. In the St. Paul building mail must be carried by elevator, whereas modern mail-processing technology requires a single-story facility, according to U.S. Postal Service spokesman Jim Stanley (Minnesota Public Radio, 6-7-05).
Pascagoula, Miss. — The “dead zone” of the Gulf of Mexico was much larger this summer than researchers had predicted. The dead zone, which is usually a summertime phenomenon, occurs when the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water becomes too low to support fish and other marine life.
Scientists from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had predicted a smaller dead zone this year because the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers were carrying much less nitrogen and other nutrients than usual. However, an annual week-long research cruise in late July found the dead zone stretching out over 4,564 square miles, extending from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Texas border — larger than expected, but still smaller than the recent years’ average of 4,800 square miles. The dead zone is believed to be caused by the growing use of nitrogen fertilizers in the Mississippi River watershed. Link
Cincinnati — To stay out of trouble with the U.S Coast Guard, be aware that it deems the following activities suspicious:
• dropping anchor beneath a bridge;
• appearing that you are under the control of someone else (no more fishing with a spouse);
• misusing river lingo or “showing inordinate eagerness to use river lingo;”
• taking photographs of the undersides of bridges;
• going out of your way to avoid contact with others on the river;
• dropping unusual objects into the water near locks or dams; or
• loitering around a waterfront facility.
The tips were included in a Coast Guard presentation in Cincinnati (Cincinnati Post, 4-15-05).
St. Paul — The Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, planted American elm trees on Eagle Island in Pool 8 this summer, as part of the U.S. Forest Service’s American Elm Restoration Project. The American elm was once a common floodplain forest species, providing leafy habitat for migratory songbirds and other wildlife. The Corps planted the five varieties of American elm that show the highest resistance to Dutch elm disease. Meanwhile, Xcel Energy in St. Paul may need to cut down trees that 1,220 volunteers planted at its High Bridge power plant eight years ago. The volunteers planted the trees to improve the area along the river and put a green buffer between the neighborhood and the power plant. Now the trees may get in the way of construction when Xcel converts its coal plant to a cleaner, smaller natural gas plant. The silver maples, cottonwoods and aspens are now six to eight inches in diameter, too big to move. Opponents of the coal burning plant are glad a cleaner plant is on the way, but see the removal of trees as a step backwards (St. Paul Pioneer Press, 7-2-05).
Minnesota — Enough studies have been done to warrant doing a more in-depth study of the status of the American eel, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will begin working with the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether to list the species as threatened or endangered.
Both federal agencies are involved because the American eel splits its life between a marine environment and freshwater. Born in the mid-Atlantic, the eels leave salt water when they are about one year old and migrate to freshwater rivers, lakes and coastal areas, where they live for another seven to 30 years. Then they return to the sea, spawn and die. The American eel is the only freshwater eel in the Western hemisphere. In the U.S. it lives inland in the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Locks and dams impede the eels’ migrations.
Clinton, Iowa — Local boaters are questioning Clinton’s $4.9 million marina upgrade. The city plans to construct a “first-class marina” that will attract more boating tourists, but current marina boat owners don’t feel included in the process and suspect their slip rental fees will increase a lot after the upgrade.
John Skornia, current marina operator, resigned from the marina committee because he disagreed with its plan. Another local concern is the plan’s proposal to dredge silt deposits to allow larger boats into the expanded marina via a 60-foot wide clearance in the channel. Planners and opponents have little time to seek a compromise. Construction bids are scheduled go out in September. Work is scheduled to begin in late September or October (Quad-City Times, 7-8-05). Chiang Khong, Thailand — You heard about the 124-pound blue catfish caught near Alton, Ill., this spring? (See Big River July-Aug 2005.) Well, that cat could have been used as bait for the 646-pound Mekong giant catfish that was caught in Thailand this summer.
Researchers with the Mekong Fish Conservation Project confirmed that it was the largest freshwater fish ever found. National Geographic, which supports the project, described it as “big as a grizzly bear.” The fish was caught and eaten in a remote village in Thailand along the Mekong River, which is home to more species of giant fish than any other river. The Mekong giant catfish, which has always been rare, is listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union. Increased development, environmental degradation and upstream dams that prevent the fish from migrating to its traditional spawning grounds in Northern Thailand are the prime causes of its decline. (National Geographic website, 6-29-05) Link Winona, Minn. — Hawks and eagles aren’t the only big birds taking to the skies this fall. Turkey vultures, Cathartes aura, also migrate south, after mating and raising their young amid the steep bluffs along the Upper Mississippi River.
Just ask Winona resident Alan Wade, who was working on a hillside prairie restoration project in mid-July, when he heard a loud hissing from the sandstone outcropping above him. He first thought it was a rattlesnake, then a badger. Carefully looking into a crevice in the sandstone overhang, he found an odd-looking white bird still covered with downy feathers.
Karla Kinstler, naturalist at the Houston Nature Center, in Houston, Minn., confirmed the bird’s identity as a young turkey vulture. Turkey vultures are not nest builders, she said, but instead lay one or two eggs in rock crevices or even old granaries. Parents don’t attack intruders, but they sometimes defend themselves by playing dead or offering their last meal — stinky carrion vomit.
“There’s nothing stinkier in this world than vulture vomit,” said Kinstler. She spoke from personal experience, having once had an injured vulture in her kitchen.
Restoring the bluffside savanna also restores the habitat of an ancient bird related to great condors. Vultures, along with hawks and eagles, depend on thermals that rise off of prairie blufftops to help them soar south.
La Crosse, Wis. — Over the course of 30 years, Ralph DuPae collected more than 55,000 images of inland river steamboats and river scenes. Unlike many collectors, though, he didn’t keep them to himself, but continually donated them to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Area Research Center. By doing so, he made sure the photographs would be properly archived and accessible to researchers.
DuPae, a retired chief engineer for Northern Engraving Company, was awarded the Presidents’ Award at the Midwest Archives Conference this summer. His photograph collection is nationally recognized for its comprehensiveness and scope.
Des Moines, Iowa — The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission granted four new gambling boat licenses in May. Three of the four licenses will represent expansion inland for current Mississippi riverboat casino management companies. Isle of Capri, which already owns riverboats casinos in Marquette, Bettendorf and Davenport, was granted a new license to open a barge casino on a manmade lake near Waterloo. Diamond Jo Worth LLC, which owns Diamond Jo casino in Dubuque, will now build a barge casino just south of the Minnesota border on I-35, in north central Iowa. Washington County Casino Resort, half-owned by the Catfish Bend casino in both Fort Madison and Burlington, will build a land-based casino with water running below it near the Iowa River, south of Iowa City.
Winona, Minn. — After hearing from 2,600 people in 17 meetings and workshops throughout the summer, the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge announced it would draft a new “preferred alternative” for its Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) and Environmental Impact Statement. The CCP will guide management of the refuge over the next 15 years.
“It is clear that preparing a new preferred alternative would be in the best interest of the resource and the people we serve,” said Don Hultman, refuge manager. The four previous alternative plans in the draft plan will remain part of the overall document. The new Alternative E, which will be 30 to 40 pages long, is scheduled for release in October. The public will have 45 days to review the plan and comment on it. The refuge may host open houses in several communities during the comment period, Hultman said. Link Just Passing Through - Raptors of the Mississippi Valley
Marquette, Iowa — Hundreds of thousands of raptors migrate down the Upper Mississippi every fall. This fall marks the 30th year that Jon Stravers and his associates have climbed the steep hills near Marquette to capture some of them.
The birds are delayed just long enough to get weighed and measured, have their age and gender recorded, and a numbered band wrapped around one leg. On the last weekend in September, the calmest of the captured birds will be carried down the hill to the Hawk Watch festival, where visitors can take a close look before the birds continue their journeys.
Stravers’ effort is the only longtime raptor banding program on the Upper Mississippi — one of four North American migration flyways. Their results, Summary of Recovery Information from Raptors Banded Along the Mississippi River in Northeast Iowa 1982-2004, by Jon W. Stravers, David Kester and Ernesto Ruelas, may be published by the Iowa Ornithological Association.
Stravers, now research coordinator for Audubon’s Upper Mississippi River Campaign, said they have banded 1,157 raptors since 1982. Most (770) were red-tailed hawks, which migrate just far enough to secure food when rodents and other prey take cover in the fall. They have also caught 179 sharp-shinned hawks, 177 Cooper’s hawks, 14 northern goshawks, four northern harriers, four peregrine falcons, four broad-winged hawks, one merlin and one American kestrel. Only three of the birds already had bands on them. Nine were later seen elsewhere.
A peregrine falcon caught in Iowa had been banded earlier that year in Greenland, 2,300 miles northeast of Marquette. “She was probably heading for Argentina,” Stravers speculated.
Another peregrine had been banded four years earlier along the Tanana River near Fairbanks, Alaska, 2,560 miles northwest of Iowa. Last fall Stravers captured a Cooper’s hawk that had been banded in 2000 at Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1,750 miles south of Marquette, by Ernesto Ruelas, who started his banding program in Mexico with Stravers’ encouragement.
“A good percentage of the birds don’t make it down and back,” Stravers said. “This one was all muscle and feathers.”
Raptors from all over north-central North America migrate along the Mississippi. The report explains why:
“The rock bluffs deflect the winds and create favorable updrafts, while the pockets of thermally heated air rise out of the valleys during mid-day. These favorable wind conditions actually help raptors do the work of migration. At the same time, the north-south line of the Mississippi River valley creates a leading line, and the forested slopes provide favorable resting and night roosting habitat.”
The banding station works closely with students. Helping kids feel a sense of connection is an important part of the program.
“Then the circle gets completed,” Stravers said.
The last week of September and the first week or two of October are the best times to see migrating eagles and hawks flying over the river bluffs.
The Hawk Watch at Effigy Mounds National Monument, Sept. 24 to 25, offers one of the region’s finest opportunities to see migratory raptors.
“It’s really a big reunion,” Stravers said. “A reunion with the birds, and a reunion of people who come to and volunteer at the event.” See the Big River Calendar for more information. Effigy Mounds events
Sioux Falls, S.D. — Boaters on Missouri River reservoirs got their wishes this summer, when late spring rains in the watershed sent enough water to the reservoirs to keep boat ramps open. Nonetheless, the Oahe Reservoir, a 231-mile stretch of the river behind Oahe Dam that extends from Pierre, S.D., to Bismarck, N.D., was still nearly 30 feet below its historical average this August.
The seventh year of drought in the Missouri River watershed is intensifying conflict between upstream and downstream interests. People upstream want to hold more water in the reservoirs for drinking, boating and fishing. Those downstream want more water released to maintain deeper channels for shipping. The shipping industry claims low water levels are crippling their business.
Davenport, Iowa — Lights, music, air conditioning and a great view of the river — what more could pedestrians want? A new five-story, 40-foot tall, $6,800,000 “skybridge” on the riverfront in Davenport allows pedestrians passage from the courtyard of River Music Experience, an American music center, up and over busy River Drive to the doors of Rhythm City Casino — a 575-foot span. From it, they can see the river, the Centennial Bridge, the Figge Art Museum, the Arsenal Bridge and Lock and Dam 15.
People seem to like it, said city administrator Dee Bruemmer. They are beginning to contact the city with comments about which of the programmed light shows they like best. River Music Experience, which is in charge of the light program, will soon add sound.
“I’m sure the internet will be involved next,” said Bruemmer. “May-be people will be able to request their favorite song with an accompanying light show.”
Now the casino is moving upriver. A new ten-story casino hotel will be built with a parking ramp on lower levels. When surface parking lots near the existing casino are no longer needed, city officials plan to redevelop green space at the base of the skybridge and expand riverside festival grounds.
Marquette, Iowa — Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc., has sought permission for many months to build a new hotel in the wetlands adjacent to Bloody Run Creek, to serve customers of the Miss Marquette riverboat casino. Now it is also negotiating to purchase land adjacent to the casino, owned by Frontier Motel. Isle of Capri might build the new hotel here, with a sky bridge connecting it with the casino.
“We are pursuing both alternatives,” said Jackie Lee, Isle of Capri’s director of marketing.
Opponents of the proposed hotel in the wetlands cheered the news, perhaps prematurely. Even if the casino purchases the motel land, it will need more parking, so it’s continuing its efforts to win approval to build on the Bloody Run wetland.
Cassville, Wis. — Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle stepped in to help the struggling Cassville Ferry, the only Mississippi River crossing in the 53 miles between Dubuque, Iowa, and Prairie du Chien, Wis. The governor included an annual $30,000 in the state’s two-year budget for the ferry’s operating expenses, which needs more funds for repair than fares can provide. The ferry carries 30,000 to 50,000 riders and lots of cars between Cassville and the Turkey River landing south of Guttenberg, Iowa.
State funding will keep the ferry running while operators and supporters seek the $400,000 needed to purchase a new ferry to replace the Charlie D.
Washington, D.C. — In a project sponsored by the McKnight Foundation, the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council will study how the Clean Water Act has and has not been implemented along the 10-state Mississippi River corridor.
The study will take on four broad areas — water quality problems along the river; the need for data and monitoring systems; water quality indicators and standards; and policies and implementation. Among the questions that the committee intends to answer are:
• What are the key water quality problems throughout the Mississippi River system?
• What are the main barriers to collecting water quality data, monitoring changes to wetlands and backwaters, establishing water quality indicators and standards for the whole river corridor, and how could they be overcome?
• To what extent does the Clean Water Act affect water quality in the Gulf of Mexico?
The Clean Water Act, which was first enacted in 1972, regulates all discharge of pollution into U.S. waters, sets standards for surface waters and gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to implement pollution control programs.
La Crosse, Wis. — When Scott Mathy announced in 2003 that he wanted to expand his company’s asphalt operations by building a new plant on Brice Prairie, residents and neighbors objected. Brice Prairie is a small community surrounded by wetlands, water and the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge, just upstream of Onalaska and La Crosse, Wis.
Now, thanks to changes in La Crosse’s floodplain map Mathy can expand the plant where it is.
Federal law prohibits building in a floodway, where water rushes during floods. Mathy’s property in La Crosse was categorized as floodway because five culverts were too small to handle water at flood levels. When Mathy installed large box culverts, the floodway became “flood fringe.” Building is allowed on fringe land, when it is filled. The company is working with residents and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to find a new use for its Brice Prairie land. (La Crosse Tribune 8-2-05)